Abstract
In this article I review theoretical approaches that attend to the entanglements between affect and labor in late capitalism. I examine the concepts of affective, reproductive, emotional, and intimate labor, with a focus on what each model illuminates and obscures. While recognizing substantial differences among many forms of affective work, I highlight the relocation of the boundaries between production and reproduction, and public and private selves, as essential common themes among them. Bringing affect into labor changes the ways scholars address traditional debates and categories surrounding workers’ consent, alienation, and exploitation. The intersections of insights into labor and affect provide tools to research the contemporary transformations of work and the tensions and alignments between affective investments and political projects of emancipation from capitalist appropriation of labor.
Highlights
In the spring of 2017, subway cars in New York City displayed a series of ads by Fiverr, an “online freelance marketplace.” The campaign was called “In Doers We Trust” and it targeted freelance workers with the message that they should never stop pitching their ideas to potential clients—best conveyed in a video on the campaign website, of a woman checking her phone while having sex—nor ever take a break from work, as revealed in the ad where a woman updates her website from a toilet in a noisy bar
The ads illustrate the affective transformations of work in late capitalism: the myriad ways in which the boundaries between public and private selves, money and intimacy, pleasure and duty, are shifting and relocating
I touch upon the more recent concept of intimate labor and discuss what the grammar of intimacy brings to light in debates surrounding the body, labor, and affect
Summary
In this article I review theoretical approaches that attend to the entanglements between affect and labor in late capitalism. I examine the concepts of affective, reproductive, emotional, and intimate labor, with a focus on what each model illuminates and obscures. While recognizing substantial differences among many forms of affective work, I highlight the relocation of the boundaries between production and reproduction, and public and private selves, as essential common themes among them. Bringing affect into labor changes the ways scholars address traditional debates and categories surrounding workers’ consent, alienation, and exploitation. The intersections of insights into labor and affect provide tools to research the contemporary transformations of work and the tensions and alignments between affective investments and political projects of emancipation from capitalist appropriation of labor
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: Athenea Digital. Revista de pensamiento e investigación social
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
