Grounded on an ethnographic study among unemployed people in Turin and, in particular, on a period of participant observation in one of the municipal centres offering courses for active job search, the paper aims to analyse some important dimensions of contemporary neoliberal policies concerning unem- ployment. Drawing on the insight that unemployed people are in a particular state of liminality, the ethnographic analysis suggests that active job search courses are a particular kind of rite of passage and also part of a neoliberal ideological apparatus. As such, they aim at transforming the subjectivities of the unemployed while supporting an individualized conception of the lack of work. Moreover, the research shows that a large part of the strength of the courses rests in the hidden ritual and symbolic qualities of this apparatus, which offers to the liminal unemployed – deprived of social status as well as of work – a new, illusory identity.

Rituali neoliberali. Uno sguardo antropologico sui servizi per la ricerca attiva del lavoro

Carlo Capello
2017-01-01

Abstract

Grounded on an ethnographic study among unemployed people in Turin and, in particular, on a period of participant observation in one of the municipal centres offering courses for active job search, the paper aims to analyse some important dimensions of contemporary neoliberal policies concerning unem- ployment. Drawing on the insight that unemployed people are in a particular state of liminality, the ethnographic analysis suggests that active job search courses are a particular kind of rite of passage and also part of a neoliberal ideological apparatus. As such, they aim at transforming the subjectivities of the unemployed while supporting an individualized conception of the lack of work. Moreover, the research shows that a large part of the strength of the courses rests in the hidden ritual and symbolic qualities of this apparatus, which offers to the liminal unemployed – deprived of social status as well as of work – a new, illusory identity.
2017
2
223
242
Antropologia della disoccupazione. Politiche attive del lavoro
Carlo Capello
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2318/1652417
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