Open AccessThe Aesthetics of Work-Readiness: Aesthetic Judgements and Pedagogies for Conditional Welfare and Post-Fordist Labour Markets
Author(s) -
Marguerite van den Berg,
Josien Arts
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
work employment and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.027
H-Index - 79
eISSN - 1469-8722
pISSN - 0950-0170
DOI - 10.1177/0950017018758196
Subject(s) - welfare , fordism , ethnography , work (physics) , legislation , aesthetics , sanctions , sociology , labour economics , business , economics , political science , market economy , art , law , engineering , mechanical engineering , anthropology
Recent legislation in the Netherlands takes conditional welfare to a new level. Local welfare offices can now give benefit sanctions to welfare clients that ‘obstruct employment’ by their appearance. Through a qualitative and ethnographic study of aesthetic evaluation practices in Dutch welfare offices it is argued that: (1) an everyday aesthetic labour is pivotal in post-Fordist labour markets; (2) in times of precarization, this is so for unemployed as well as formally employed populations; (3) welfare clients are expected to give an aesthetic performance of work-readiness and adaptability; and (4) case managers use aesthetics as a pedagogy to achieve this readiness and adaptability. Aesthetic labour, it is then argued, is best conceptualized as a continuous, everyday, backstage labour for labour: a daily calibration for work contexts in flux.
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