The call for papers for the Biennial Conference of the Finnish Anthropological society.
The conference will take place in the University of Jyväskylä between the 22th and the 23rd of May.
I invite you to submit a paper to the panel Neoliberal employment policies and the production of difference.
If you are interested send your name, affiliation, contact information, the title of your paper, the abstract (max. 200 words), and the name of the panel to the two following emails:
Mobilityconference2017@gmail.com
Francisco.arqueros@nuim.ie
Neoliberal employment policies and the production of difference
Organizer: Francisco Arqueros-Fernandez, National University of Ireland
The Welfare State, contrary to common belief in most anthropological literature, has not been dismantled nor has significantly shrunk in the EU; rather, it has changed its character. Some of the aspects of this change have been a process of privatisation by a progressive handing of management to the third sector of State welfare programs and the adoption of the ideology of Neoliberalism.
This shift has affected state employment policies. The state has delegated to the private sector and the “free market” the creation of employment, and has progressively reduced employment polices to the implementation of Active Employment Policies (AEPs). These processes have contributed to the “production of boundaries”, and therefore the “production and reproduction of difference” between different groups of workers, rather than to the closing of them.
Embodied social phenomena such as ethnicity, gender and class constitute grounds for the social production of difference among workers, and the construction of a segmented labour market.
This panel intends to explore how Active Employment Policies contribute to the reproduction of social stereotypes between groups of immigrant and local workers, particularly at the lower end of the labour market; how different groups of workers are categorized as fit for certain types of jobs while excluded from others; how these policies determine their incomes and social status; how despite their intentions these policies do not produce equal individuals before the market; what has been the role of the voluntary and the private sectors in the implementation of AEPs; who are the beneficiaries of these policies; etc. This panel calls for papers dealing with the topics described above, mainly located in EU countries.