Nothingness and Time
Exploring the temporal governmentality of unemployment
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3945124 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Tom Boland (0000-0003-4947-9430, Waterford Institute of Technology), Ray Griffin (0000-0003-4580-7310, Waterford Institute of Technology) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue | 29 |
| Publication date | 2019-10-11 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Temporalités (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1777-9006 • E-ISSN: 2102-5878 |
| Publisher | OpenEdition (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.4000/temporalites.6202 |
| OpenAlex | W2979298521 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 32 |
Unemployment is not just an economic category but is constituted by governmentality (Foucault, 2010), most evidently by the increase of interventions into the lives of the unemployed through Active Labour Market Policies (ALMP). Furthermore, the International Labour Organization (ILO) definition of unemployment as being without work, available for work and seeking work is a shifting classification which categorises unemployment on multiple temporal horizons, with the passive element of being without work increasingly superseded by the emphasis on seeking work. Through biographical interviews with unemployed in Ireland, spanning from 2012-2018, we trace this transformation of temporality empirically and conclude that governmentality constitutes multiple, contradictory, indefinite forms of time. Particularly, we offer an imaginative reading of two overlapping temporalities: Kairos, waiting, enduring, suffering nothingness in anticipation of transformation by getting a job, and Cronos, not cyclical time, but the devouring of time, where the days and leisure of the unemployed people are deliberately consumed by job-seeking. Ironically, states implement ALMPs in the kairotic hope of transforming their economy, yet these policies do little but make the experience of unemployment even harder to endure
Criminology · Economic growth · Economics · Epistemology · Futures contract · Governmentality · Imprisonment · Political science · Sociology · Temporalities · Temporality · Unemployment · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Employment and Welfare Studies · Law · Philosophy · Social Policy and Reform Studies
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Storytelling Organizations
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The psychosocial quality of work determines whether employment has benefits for mental health
Street-Level Bureaucracy
Governmentality
Financing Philanthropic Institutions in Biblical and Talmudic Times
The Moral Economy of Activation
Transformation of the Welfare State
Qualitative Research Interviewing
Giving an Account of Oneself
Positive affect as coercive strategy
Continuities within paradigmatic change
Foucault’s End of History
Low road or high road? The post-crisis trajectory of Irish activation
Between the Millstones
Quelles temporalites travaillent les entretiens biographiques retrospectifs
The Unmanaged Organization
The messianic nature of innovation
Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism
The purgatorial ethic and the spirit of welfare
The invention of purgatory
Shaping activation policy at the street level
Governing the unemployed self in an active society
The promotion of the social∗
Enter the Troika
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |