Is work not working anymore? Negotiatingmeaning, boundaries and new practices of work in the ruins of employment

Titolo Rivista SOCIOLOGIA DEL LAVORO
Autori/Curatori Costanza Guazzo, Gianmarco Peterlongo
Anno di pubblicazione 2026 Fascicolo 2026/174
Lingua Inglese Numero pagine 20 P. 9-28 Dimensione file 0 KB
DOI 10.3280/SL2026-174001
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This paper examines the shifting relationship between subjectivity and work in contemporary post-industrial societies, focusing on the ways in which workers are renegotiating the meaning, boundaries, and practices of employment amid the structural erosion of stable labour. Drawing on the metaphor of "ruins," the introduction argues that the decline of the Standard Employment Relation has not produced a simple collapse of work-centred identities, but rather a layered process of decay and reconfiguration, in which moral expectations surrounding work persist even as their material foundations are progressively undermined. Within these ruins, new interrogatives and a re-imagining of social priorities have led some individuals to rethink the relationship they have with their jobs, opening up spaces of possibility in which the contours of a new world of work are potentially beginning, unevenly, to take shape. Though often fragmented, these spaces of possibility reveal attempts to redefine the meaning, boundaries, and conditions of work, seeking to establish a more sustainable relationship from within the "ruins of stable employment”.

Questo articolo esamina l’evoluzione del rapporto tra soggettività e lavoro nelle società post-industriali contemporanee, concentrandosi sulle modalità con cui le lavoratrici e i lavoratori rinegoziano il significato, i confini e le pratiche dell’occupazione a fronte dell’erosione strutturale del lavoro stabile. Ricorrendo alla metafora delle “rovine”, sosteniamo che il declino della Standard Employment Relationship non ha prodotto un semplice collasso delle identità centrate sul lavoro, bensì un processo stratificato di decadimento e riconfigurazione; in esso, le aspettative morali legate all'impiego persistono, nonostante le loro fondamenta materiali siano state progressivamente minate. All'interno di queste rovine, nuovi interrogativi e una re-immaginazione delle priorità sociali hanno spinto alcuni individui a ripensare il legame con la propria occupazione, aprendo spazi di possibilità in cui i contorni di un nuovo mondo del lavoro iniziano potenzialmente, seppur in modo non uniforme, a prendere forma. Sebbene spesso frammentati, questi spazi di possibilità rivelano tentativi di ridefinire il significato, i perimetri e le condizioni del lavoro, nel tentativo di stabilire una relazione più sostenibile a partire dalle “rovine dell'occupazione stabile”.

Parole chiave:rifiuto del lavoro, significatività del lavoro, grandi dimissioni, salute lavorativa, futuro del lavoro.

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Costanza Guazzo, Gianmarco Peterlongo, Is work not working anymore? Negotiatingmeaning, boundaries and new practices of work in the ruins of employment in "SOCIOLOGIA DEL LAVORO " 174/2026, pp 9-28, DOI: 10.3280/SL2026-174001