Work, Employability, Subjectivity

Abstract

This chapter explores a variety of literatures that deal with the question of the meaning of ‘work’, and I look at the ways that people are impacted by changes to how work is viewed, and how these views are processed by governments that influence particular political strategies intending to create employable, objectified subjects. I compare traditional views to more contemporary, modern, and even postmodern conceptualisations, to identify how common sense, discourses, and the hegemonies of ideas in a Gramscian understanding take shape in conjunction with social change and assumptions of human capabilities in the new and ‘flexible’ world of work.