Psychic and Affective Practices of Female Neoliberal Spiritual Subject in New Organisational Forms

Abstract

This article analyses the contours of the female neoliberal spiritual subject in new organisational formations by analysing psychic and affective practices. The psychic life of neoliberalism compels women to develop the right mind-set to be successful while the affective practices determine how women are allowed to feel. The article draws on empirical data collected in a gig economy context where individual women both consume and sell beauty products in a network marketing company. The article highlights how neoliberal spirituality is used as a psychic and affective practice, which compels women to cultivate the right mind-set by developing self-belief, being positive and showing gratitude, and as an affective practice which structures how women are allowed to feel. The psychic and affective practices act in concert to hide the precarity and inequalities that characterise this type of work. This article contributes to understanding how neoliberal spirituality is used in new forms of organising to constitute gendered subjects and normalise inequalities and precariousness.