<p>The intersecting politics of gender and work influence the changing nature of work itself, and how it is experienced. Unemployment, underemployment, precarity, and overwork, along with issues concerning unpaid care work and housework, impact upon an increasingly significant and disparate group of people. This warrants a critical reflection on assumptions concerning the creation of fixed identities around occupations. The emerging workforce is especially affected by the fact that “good” jobs (full-time, decently paid careers) are increasingly difficult to find, and at the same time, the scarcity of long-term jobs can cause people to be more committed to the workplace to ensure the security of ongoing employment.This further complicates the focus on full employment as a perceived marker of gender equality; not to mention the implications of an increased commitment to formal employment on the dual-wage labour market (such as housekeepers and nannies) and unpaid care work. However, literature concerning the feminist challenging of work and other approaches to the theorisation of work, as well as how perceived changes to work influence the future/emerging workforce, is currently limited. This research will, accordingly, focus on these areas. In this thesis, I am interested in examining the nature of political engagement, and how it is affected by changes to the prioritisation of time, access to material resources, and the dwindling of a fixed occupational identity. Of specific interest is how these wider issues are perceived by young people (secondary school students in New Zealand), rather than the subjective experience of people currently in the workforce. Young people are often characterised as having straightforwardly adopted the norms and values of neoliberalism, as opposed to being politically engaged. This research is made up in equal parts from theoretical and empirical components. Firstly, the theoretical work of Autonomist Marxists Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, and feminist economic geographers Katherine Gibson and Julie Graham (known as J.K Gibson-Graham) provide a framework that allows young people’s engagement with politics to be recognised and understood as multifaceted, meaningful and agent-driven. Secondly, findings from focus group research conducted with secondary school students highlights the socially-generated nature of knowledge itself, bringing language that young people use to discuss these issues to the forefront. Combining these two modes of analysis highlights the complexities and nuances of young people’s understandings of these issues, advancing theory on how young people engage politically.</p>
Working with Young People at University of Porto
