Working through (mis)recognition: Understanding vulnerability as ambivalence in precarious worker subjectivity
通过对104名不稳定工人的深度访谈，运用拉康精神分析理论，揭示了工人如何无意识地依附于新自由主义价值观，从而在认可与误认可的矛盾中形成主体性，为理解脆弱性的伦理提供了新视角。
Most workers around the world are part of the precariat, characterized by non-permanent, informal, short-term, low-pay, low-skill, and insecure jobs. While there have been many socio-economic critiques of the negative impacts of precarity on workers, the literature has increasingly asked how precarious workers actually live their lives and how their subjectivities are produced on a daily basis. We contribute to this literature by providing a psychosocial account of the ambivalent experiences of precarious workers. We contend that the interplay of recognition and misrecognition plays a crucial role, as the vulnerable, working subject becomes entangled in a complex web of recognizability. We present insights from 104 in-depth interviews, providing a Lacanian analysis of how precarious workers develop unconscious attachments to neoliberal values that are central to the logic of precarity. Understanding this ambivalence helps us develop a more nuanced view of an ethics of precarious workers’ vulnerability.