Crisis at Work

This book explores how we make sense of ourselves when work is precarious and intrinsically alienating. We know little about how this experience of work impacts the lives of men and women, and less about the way individuals understand themselves in the face of institutions and organizations from which they feel marginalized. Based on the narratives of men and women who underwent extraordinary work life changes, Crisis at Work examines how we negotiate greater meaning and fulfilment when our productive lives fail to sustain and satisfy. Reflecting a growing fracture between what we value, believe in, and are committed to and the degree to which work and career have become incapable of assuaging those desires, Potter examines how individuals attempt to assemble working-lives they find rich and rewarding and how that work is negotiated within the constraints and possibilities of the contemporary moment.

This book explores how individuals experience and negotiate their identity during periods of dramatic career transition. The book brings significant complexity to debates about 'the end of work' by offering an in-depth empirical exploration of the construction and challenges of alternative life and work trajectories. the book's fascinating insights into how individuals negotiate work transitions will hopefully stimulate more much-needed research on how the contemporary shift in work conditions relates to selfhood. (Maria Adamson, Work, employment and society, Vol. 31 (4), 2017)

Jesse Potter's new book Crisis at Work is an attempt to gauge the saliency of some of these wilder claims by studying a series of people experiencing significant upheaval in their working careers. Potter's introductory scene setting material is a useful summation of current debates in the field and as a whole it provides a snapshot of work orientation among a narrow group of middle-class workers confronting change. (Tim Strangleman, British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 67 (1), January, 2016)

Autorentext
Jesse Potter is Postdoctoral Fellow in Sociology in the Department of Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.

Inhalt

1. Introduction 2. Work, Self, Identity 3. Changing 'Careers' 4. Being 'in between' 5. Exiting the Organization 6. Trade-offs 7. The Politics of Self-Determination 8. Self Understanding and the Changing Self