Reading inquiry through the prism of unemployement

This exploratory text starts from a doctoral-unemployed experience and was triggered by the discussions within a collective of doctoral students on this particularly ambiguous status since it is situated between student, unemployed, worker, self-entrepreneur, citizen-subject of social rights or user-commuter in offices and forms. These discussions motivated the reading and commentary of a heterogeneous set of texts on unemployment, precariousness and the functioning of the institutions of the social state. This article thus focuses on the relationship between knowledge and unemployment, as embodied in the public space, in the relationship with Pôle Emploi, and in the academic literature. It articulates a threefold problematic : what is known and said publicly about unemployment? What can we learn from the very experience of the relationship with an institution like Pôle Emploi? How can these observations contribute to an understanding of social science inquiry and the political role of knowledge fromm precariousness?

What we learn from helping each other

The text below is a testimony. It tells the story of the creation of INFLEchir at the Université Paris-Sorbonne (now named Sorbonne University) and attempts to analyze the sources that enabled this experience to happen. How is a solidary experience formed ? What are the obstacles ? How can it last and what do we learn from it ? In the wake of the mobilization that followed the occupation of Lycée Jean Quarré in 2015, the story of InFLEchir does not give definitive answers to these questions and does not pretend to do so. Perhaps, though, it will make a modest contribution to shedding more light on research devoted to militant experiences.

Lire l’enquête depuis le chômage

Ce texte exploratoire part d’une expérience de doctorant-chômeur. Il a été déclenché par les discussions au sein d’un collectif de doctorants sur ce statut particulièrement ambigu puisque situé entre étudiant, chômeur, travailleur, entrepreneur de soi, citoyen-sujet de droits sociaux ou encore usager-circulant dans les bureaux et les formulaires. Ces discussions ont motivé la lecture et le commentaire d’un ensemble hétérogène de textes sur le chômage, la précarité et le fonctionnement des institutions de l’Etat social. Cet article s’intéresse ainsi aux rapports entre savoirs et chômage, tels qu’ils s’incarnent dans l’espace public, dans la relation à Pôle Emploi, et dans la littérature académique. Il articule une triple problématique : qu’est-ce qui se sait et se dit publiquement du chômage ? Qu’est-ce que nous apprend l’expérience même du rapport à une institution comme Pôle Emploi ? En quoi ces observations peuvent-elles contribuer à une compréhension de l’enquête en sciences sociales, ainsi qu’au rôle politique des savoirs depuis la précarité ?

Pensar la precariedad

A partir de algunos argumentos de su ensayo Crítica de la razón precaria. La vida intelectual ante la obligación de lo extraordinario (2019), el autor propone un enfoque que considere el fenómeno de la precariedad intelectual tanto en lo que afecta a la subjetividad como a la misma precariedad de los saberes. Para ello, se examinan ciertos conceptos clave en la estructura y funcionamiento de la precariedad y se ponen en relación con el carácter global de la configuración neoliberal de las prácticas educativas e investigadoras. Esta exposición de la “razón precaria” concluye con la reivindicación de una alternativa de la vida intelectual en clave plebeya

Social and epistemic disparities of the precariat.

We are facing two major challenges in present times. The first challenge is the global mass migrations of people due to war, climate change and environmental degradation, who are forced to work in precarious situations, often leading to socio-political disruptions. The second challenge lies in technology that provides a global network for the migration of ideas, liberating knowledge from its geographical and disciplinary boundaries and challenging our perceptions of human exceptionality. To bring together these challenges might seem impossible, but when one looks at the uncertainties emerging around humanity’s future, this is possibly a necessary task. In this chapter I would like to initiate some thinking in that direction.

Decline in journalism under precarious conditions

Since the beginning, at least from an idealistic perspective, journalism has been considered as a public service and should serve democracy. Despite the relationship between democracy and journalism deteriorates rapidly, this liberal understanding of journalism is still used to evaluate the journalistic work. This relationship should be protected as a value and a target in order to maintain journalism as a meaningful social institution. But how can this objective be achieved in the current difficult conditions, which are the neoliberal working conditions changing the production of news dramatically and responsible for the declining journalistic quality in the first place? Relatedly, an important consequence of the change in the knowledge production and news production process is the increasing precarization of journalistic labour. In this respect, it is important to question how journalism maintain to claim fulfilling its basic function with the precarious journalists, who are obliged to behave individualistic, disorganised, competitive and as human capitals. It can be safely said that only journalists who have secure working conditions, basic rights and freedom of speech protected under law can produce quality information serving democratic process. And these are the exact rights under attack by neoliberal turn. The study will focus on the question of how we can grasp “the relationship between journalism and democracy”, which is substantially a liberal understanding, in the neoliberal period when precarious conditions have turned into a norm. In this context, the problematic aspects of insisting on the proposals of ancient liberal solutions to that degenerating relationship, such as journalism ethics, which almost completely ignores contemporary working conditions, will also be pointed out. In addition, the role of media, technological developments and social media will be addressed from the perspective of precarization and the process of capital accumulation. Information, whether as a daily communication or intellectual production, has been possible to be dispossessed in the contemporary capital accumulation process. In neoliberal capitalism, the decline of democracy is accompanied by a decline in the quality of journalism. With the heavy attacks on journalism and academia, Turkey sets an example on this subject. In Turkey example, after the 1980 military coup neoliberal policies have gained momentum with the support of privatizations, financialization and deunionization and they have taken effect also in journalism sector. And there is a strong connection between the precarization in knowledge production processes and the current situation of journalists and journalism. Journalists' struggle for freedom of press is inseparable from the struggle to improve working conditions. Job security, social rights and other demands are the subject of a general struggle for civic rights, in which readers of the journalistic work are also involved. The precarious conditions of the journalists connect them with all other sectors subject to similar conditions and ultimately with the society, as precarization is becoming the dominant production process in general. Because the most of the audience of the journalists are also the member of the precariat or becoming one rapidly, precarity and precarious conditions connect journalists and their audience. And this concrete and obvious base of connection is also a possible junction point for lots of other people and sectors. Journalists are the direct party/part of this struggle. Starting from this, a far-reaching political struggle against the same perpetrator, who is responsible for the dispossession of not only journalists’, but also of whole society’s civic and labour rights, is urgently needed all over the world.

Force des savoirs, précarité des conditions

Faire le lien entre savoirs et précarité, a des conséquences multiples, notamment sur les sociabilités du savoir. Celles-ci se structurent à partir d’une conscience permanente d’une double série d’écarts qu’il est impossible de « régler » théoriquement : d’une part les écarts entre les conditions, dramatiquement différentes, dans lesquelles les un.e.s et les autres enquêtent, écrivent, étudient, d’autre part les écarts entre des rapports aux savoirs, très différents selon les expériences et les engagements auxquelles ils se rattachent et selon les instances qui en orientent ou en entravent la production et l’expression. La proposition collective, à la fois théorique et politique, consiste justement à ne surtout pas prétendre régler ces écarts, à ne surtout pas se précipiter pour recréer des zones d’invisibilité ou des vues perspectives, mais à chercher la manière de se réapproprier d’autres manières d’exercer nos responsabilités dans un contexte de nécessaire transformation des imaginaires d’un monde plus habitable, moins violent pour tant d’entre nous, plus égalitaire, plus juste, plus ouvert.

The Chilean Scholarship Program. Shapes of precarity as a policy

The ambitious National Program has invested billions since its foundation in 2008, without any clear definition regarding the return of the scholarship holders. Thousands of young researchers are now in precarious labor conditions in an already collapsed system. Our qualitative research seeks to understand the ways former scholarship holders live precarity and how does it impact their nowledge production