Simon Schaupp
Biographic Data
| ID | 296528 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Simon Schaupp |
| GIVEN NAMES | Simon |
| FAMILY NAME | Schaupp |
| SIGNATURE | SCHAUPP S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Basel |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1040-6971 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 42 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Labour process theory in the ecological crisis
The articles collected in this special issue apply labour process theory (LPT) to analyses of the ecological crisis and thereby develop conceptual extensions to its basic frameworks. This editorial posits that such extensions are necessary on two levels: on a historical level , it becomes clear that in the present conjuncture many labour conflicts are shaped or even triggered by the ecological crisis. Even without any green transformation, the ec…
Artificial intelligence and the regulation of the social metabolism. On the interaction between AI and the biosphere
Environmental orientations at work: Scientific and embodied environmental knowledge
Based on two qualitative case studies undertaken in Switzerland, this article compares the positioning of Climate Strike activists and construction workers on questions of climate change, so as to analyse the impact of work practices on environmental orientations. Building on a praxeological approach, the article argues that communities of practice in workplaces and educational institutions influence environmental orientations. Everyday practice …
Arbeitskampf in der deutschen Saisonarbeit: Der unwahrscheinliche Streik bei »Spargel Ritter«
Wir analysieren den Streik rumänischer Saisonarbeitskräfte auf dem Betrieb »Spargel Ritter« im Mai 2020 und untersuchen, warum es hier zur seltenen Anwendung von Widerstandsstrategien kam. Anhand der Trias von »Loyalty«, »Exit« und »Voice« werden die Handlungsspielräume und Hürden migrantischer Arbeiter*innen im System der deutschen Saisonarbeit rekonstruiert. Im Fall Ritter verschmolzen scheinbar gegensätzliche Strategien der Arbeitenden zu eine…
Climate Change Vulnerability and the Politics of Production on Swiss Construction Sites
Although it is widely acknowledged that vulnerability to climate change is distributed unevenly, the significance of differences in working conditions remains understudied. This article explores workplace climate vulnerability through analysis of the ‘politics of production’, understood as the interaction between negotiations at the level of institutional regulation and those pertaining to the labour process. The matter is considered through inte…
The fear of uselessness: From the normalization to the enjoyment of ecological destructiveness
Protest against the mitigation of climate change has become a core issue for right-wing populism across the globe. Such politics can mobilize a widespread normalization of ecological destructiveness. Drawing on Frankfurt School critical theory and Lacanian psychoanalysis, this article argues that climate protection provokes such outrage because it appears to negate all the sacrifices that had to be made for the world of work. Thus, the normalizat…
Climate Youth to Power: Coalition Strategy as Social Movement Response to Youth Power Deficits
Based on semi-structured interviews, this article analyzes how activists in the Swiss climate movement deal with their youthfulness. The interviewees associate their youthfulness with institutional, discursive, and economic power deficits that reduce their political assertiveness. They respond to this with a strategy that relies on coalitions with “adult” organizations that compensate for these power deficits. These alliances, in turn, shape and …
Metabolic politics: Industrial relations as if nature mattered
Work is at the centre of the social metabolism with nature. This means that industrial relations (IR) are always also environmental politics. This article reviews core contributions to IR literature, showing that they do not systematically address this role of nature and separate the politics of work from their ecological basis. Drawing on historical case studies of the processing of three core products of capitalist modernity (fossil fuels, meat…
Bauarbeit im Klimawandel: Expansive Nutzbarmachung und ökologischer Eigensinn
Basierend auf verstehenden Interviews werden in diesem Beitrag die Umweltorientierungen von Schweizer Bauarbeiter*innen in Bezug auf den Klimawandel untersucht. Einerseits artikulieren die Befragten eine eher ablehnende Haltung gegenüber der Klimabewegung und dem staatlichen Klimaschutz, andererseits entwickeln sie eine ausgeprägte ökologische Kritik an ihrer eigenen Branche. Diese basiert auf einem verkörperten Umweltwissen, in dem die Erfahrung…
The valorization of interactions. Gift exchange, power and value creation on digital platforms
Technology companies are often worth billions, but they still must make their money through advertising. The research literature on the value creation of data-driven platform companies often refers to the expropriation of data or the exploitation of users. This article proposes a relational approach to the understanding of value creation on digital platforms such as social media channels or free internet services. To this end, it combines Marxian…
Widerstand im Arbeitsprozess: Eine arbeitssoziologische Einführung
Herrschaft bringt immer auch Widerständigkeit hervor. Demnach stellen Regelabweichungen, die sich aus unvollständig determiniertem Arbeitshandeln ergeben, ein strukturelles Merkmal im Arbeitsprozess dar. Die Formierung eines informellen Repertoires widerständiger Praktiken im Kontext betrieblicher Herrschaft ist dabei von der Arbeitssoziologie bisher vernachlässigt worden. Um diese konzeptionelle Leerstelle zu füllen, systematisieren die Beiträge…
Ridiculing the artificial boss: Organisational technocultures and the humorous criticism of AI at work
Drawing on ethnographic data, this article analyses employees’ cultural appropriation of AI systems within delivery platforms and manufacturing in Germany. Cultures of technology appropriation in workplaces emerge in a context of domination. Deviant forms of appropriation thus constitute a form of organisational misbehaviour for which employees must assume repercussions. Employees’ criticism of AI systems at their workplaces therefore differs str…
Covid‐19, economic crises and digitalisation: How algorithmic management became an alternative to automation
The COVID‐19 crisis witnessed a major rise in investment in software for the digital organisation and rationalisation of work, while investment in robotics is continuously lagging behind expectations. This article argues that we can understand this development as the continuation of the rise of algorithmic management as a technological fix for profitability crises. Thus, in the face of falling wage rates and a structural overaccumulation of capit…
Ungleicher Gabentausch – User-Interaktionen und Wertschöpfung auf digitalen Plattformen
In diesem Artikel schlagen wir einen relationalen Ansatz zum Verständnis der Wertschöpfung auf digitalen Plattformen wie Social-Media-Kanälen oder kostenlosen Internetdienstleistungen vor. Dabei kombinieren wir Ansätze der Marx’schen und anthropologischen Werttheorie in innovativer Weise und machen sie für ein Verständnis der digitalen Ökonomie fruchtbar. Demnach handelt es sich bei den Interaktionen der Plattform-User nicht, wie verschiedentlich…
Cybernetic proletarianization: Spirals of devaluation and conflict in digitalized production
Drawing on a case study of algorithmically controlled manual labour in German manufacturing and delivery logistics, this article develops the concept of cybernetic proletarianization. It does so by joining an empirical analysis of labour processes with theoretical class analysis. Thus, it reconstructs Marx's understanding of technical proletarianization as a dialectic between expulsion and reintegration of living labour in production processes. I…
Algorithmic Integration and Precarious (Dis)Obedience: On the Co-Constitution of Migration Regime and Workplace Regime in Digitalised Manufacturing and Logistics
This article analyses the interaction of the algorithmic workplace regime and the migration regime in manual work in platform logistics and manufacturing in Germany. Based on ethnographic case studies, the article reconstructs how companies integrate migrant workers by using systems of algorithmic work control. These simplify the labour process and direct workers without relying on a certain language. Algorithmic work control, however, does not r…
Ende des fossilen Klassenkompromisses: Die Gelbwestenbewegung als ökologischer Konflikt des »Hinterlands«
Der Klassenkompromiss der frühindustrialisierten Länder beruht auf der Verfügbarkeit billiger fossiler Brennstoffe; der individuelle Autobesitz wurde zu seinem Kennzeichen. Infolge der ökologisch-ökonomischen Krise und deren staatlicher Bearbeitung in einer Strategie der Austeritätsökologie gerät dieser fossile Klassenkompromiss zunehmend unter Druck. In der Folge entstehen neue ökologische Klassenkonflikte, die hier am Beispiel der französischen…
Technopolitics from Below: A Framework for the Analysis of Digital Politics of Production
This article develops a multi-level framework for the analysis of a bottom-up politics of technology at the workplace. It draws on a multi-case study on algorithmic management of manual labor in manufacturing and delivery platforms in Germany. In researching how workers influenced the use of algorithmic management systems, the concept of technopolitics is developed to refer to three different arenas of negotiation: (1) the arena of regulation, wh…
Towards Emancipatory Technology Studies
However, beyond this techno-utopianism and its critique, there is a growing body of literature aiming at exploring potentials for social emancipation in a highly technologised world. Besides feminist examinations of the relations between technology and gender (in)equality [1-3], ecology-centred reflections on sustainable futures In spite of their different (empirical and theoretical) perspectives, all these studies appear to share a similar under…
De-centering the Revolution: Class Composition in the Making and Defeat of the Bavarian Council Republic
In November 1918, the labor movement of Bavaria, Germany, overthrew the monarchist government and, in April 1919, proclaimed a Bavarian Council Republic (BCR). This article analyzes the revolution and its defeat through the lens of class composition theory, thereby suggesting some revisions to the latter. The technical composition of the Bavarian working class fostered the concept of self-management, which lay at the heart of the councils as the …
Die totale Evaluation: Skizze zu einer materialistischen Dispositivanalyse
Digitalization in Industry: Between Domination and Emancipation
Digitalization in Industry: Between Domination and Emancipation
Digital Self-Evaluation and the Cybernetic Regime: A Sketch for a Materialist Apparatus Analysis
Using the example of self-tracking, this paper develops a materialist approach to the methodology of apparatus analysis. It builds on the Foucauldian concept of the apparatus, which it then subdivides into micro apparatus, as a concrete digital technology, and macro apparatus, as the superordinate regime to which the micro apparatus contributes. To bridge these two concepts, the term of the “urgent need” is used for asking to which broader social…
Wir nennen es flexible Selbstkontrolle.«: Self-Tracking als Selbsttechnologie des kybernetischen Kapitalismus
Algorithmic Integration and Precarious (Dis)Obedience: On the Co-Constitution of Migration Regime and Workplace Regime in Digitalised Manufacturing and Logistics
This article analyses the interaction of the algorithmic workplace regime and the migration regime in manual work in platform logistics and manufacturing in Germany. Based on ethnographic case studies, the article reconstructs how companies integrate migrant workers by using systems of algorithmic work control. These simplify the labour process and direct workers without relying on a certain language. Algorithmic work control, however, does not r…
Covid‐19, economic crises and digitalisation: How algorithmic management became an alternative to automation
The COVID‐19 crisis witnessed a major rise in investment in software for the digital organisation and rationalisation of work, while investment in robotics is continuously lagging behind expectations. This article argues that we can understand this development as the continuation of the rise of algorithmic management as a technological fix for profitability crises. Thus, in the face of falling wage rates and a structural overaccumulation of capit…
Cybernetic proletarianization: Spirals of devaluation and conflict in digitalized production
Drawing on a case study of algorithmically controlled manual labour in German manufacturing and delivery logistics, this article develops the concept of cybernetic proletarianization. It does so by joining an empirical analysis of labour processes with theoretical class analysis. Thus, it reconstructs Marx's understanding of technical proletarianization as a dialectic between expulsion and reintegration of living labour in production processes. I…
Technopolitics from Below: A Framework for the Analysis of Digital Politics of Production
This article develops a multi-level framework for the analysis of a bottom-up politics of technology at the workplace. It draws on a multi-case study on algorithmic management of manual labor in manufacturing and delivery platforms in Germany. In researching how workers influenced the use of algorithmic management systems, the concept of technopolitics is developed to refer to three different arenas of negotiation: (1) the arena of regulation, wh…
Towards Emancipatory Technology Studies
However, beyond this techno-utopianism and its critique, there is a growing body of literature aiming at exploring potentials for social emancipation in a highly technologised world. Besides feminist examinations of the relations between technology and gender (in)equality [1-3], ecology-centred reflections on sustainable futures In spite of their different (empirical and theoretical) perspectives, all these studies appear to share a similar under…
Wir nennen es flexible Selbstkontrolle.«: Self-Tracking als Selbsttechnologie des kybernetischen Kapitalismus
Digital Self-Evaluation and the Cybernetic Regime: A Sketch for a Materialist Apparatus Analysis
Using the example of self-tracking, this paper develops a materialist approach to the methodology of apparatus analysis. It builds on the Foucauldian concept of the apparatus, which it then subdivides into micro apparatus, as a concrete digital technology, and macro apparatus, as the superordinate regime to which the micro apparatus contributes. To bridge these two concepts, the term of the “urgent need” is used for asking to which broader social…
Die totale Evaluation: Skizze zu einer materialistischen Dispositivanalyse
Digitalization in Industry: Between Domination and Emancipation
Digitalization in Industry: Between Domination and Emancipation
Ende des fossilen Klassenkompromisses: Die Gelbwestenbewegung als ökologischer Konflikt des »Hinterlands«
Der Klassenkompromiss der frühindustrialisierten Länder beruht auf der Verfügbarkeit billiger fossiler Brennstoffe; der individuelle Autobesitz wurde zu seinem Kennzeichen. Infolge der ökologisch-ökonomischen Krise und deren staatlicher Bearbeitung in einer Strategie der Austeritätsökologie gerät dieser fossile Klassenkompromiss zunehmend unter Druck. In der Folge entstehen neue ökologische Klassenkonflikte, die hier am Beispiel der französischen…
Technopolitics from Below: A Framework for the Analysis of Digital Politics of Production
This article develops a multi-level framework for the analysis of a bottom-up politics of technology at the workplace. It draws on a multi-case study on algorithmic management of manual labor in manufacturing and delivery platforms in Germany. In researching how workers influenced the use of algorithmic management systems, the concept of technopolitics is developed to refer to three different arenas of negotiation: (1) the arena of regulation, wh…
Towards Emancipatory Technology Studies
However, beyond this techno-utopianism and its critique, there is a growing body of literature aiming at exploring potentials for social emancipation in a highly technologised world. Besides feminist examinations of the relations between technology and gender (in)equality [1-3], ecology-centred reflections on sustainable futures In spite of their different (empirical and theoretical) perspectives, all these studies appear to share a similar under…
De-centering the Revolution: Class Composition in the Making and Defeat of the Bavarian Council Republic
In November 1918, the labor movement of Bavaria, Germany, overthrew the monarchist government and, in April 1919, proclaimed a Bavarian Council Republic (BCR). This article analyzes the revolution and its defeat through the lens of class composition theory, thereby suggesting some revisions to the latter. The technical composition of the Bavarian working class fostered the concept of self-management, which lay at the heart of the councils as the …
Ungleicher Gabentausch – User-Interaktionen und Wertschöpfung auf digitalen Plattformen
In diesem Artikel schlagen wir einen relationalen Ansatz zum Verständnis der Wertschöpfung auf digitalen Plattformen wie Social-Media-Kanälen oder kostenlosen Internetdienstleistungen vor. Dabei kombinieren wir Ansätze der Marx’schen und anthropologischen Werttheorie in innovativer Weise und machen sie für ein Verständnis der digitalen Ökonomie fruchtbar. Demnach handelt es sich bei den Interaktionen der Plattform-User nicht, wie verschiedentlich…
Cybernetic proletarianization: Spirals of devaluation and conflict in digitalized production
Drawing on a case study of algorithmically controlled manual labour in German manufacturing and delivery logistics, this article develops the concept of cybernetic proletarianization. It does so by joining an empirical analysis of labour processes with theoretical class analysis. Thus, it reconstructs Marx's understanding of technical proletarianization as a dialectic between expulsion and reintegration of living labour in production processes. I…
Algorithmic Integration and Precarious (Dis)Obedience: On the Co-Constitution of Migration Regime and Workplace Regime in Digitalised Manufacturing and Logistics
This article analyses the interaction of the algorithmic workplace regime and the migration regime in manual work in platform logistics and manufacturing in Germany. Based on ethnographic case studies, the article reconstructs how companies integrate migrant workers by using systems of algorithmic work control. These simplify the labour process and direct workers without relying on a certain language. Algorithmic work control, however, does not r…
Widerstand im Arbeitsprozess: Eine arbeitssoziologische Einführung
Herrschaft bringt immer auch Widerständigkeit hervor. Demnach stellen Regelabweichungen, die sich aus unvollständig determiniertem Arbeitshandeln ergeben, ein strukturelles Merkmal im Arbeitsprozess dar. Die Formierung eines informellen Repertoires widerständiger Praktiken im Kontext betrieblicher Herrschaft ist dabei von der Arbeitssoziologie bisher vernachlässigt worden. Um diese konzeptionelle Leerstelle zu füllen, systematisieren die Beiträge…
Ridiculing the artificial boss: Organisational technocultures and the humorous criticism of AI at work
Drawing on ethnographic data, this article analyses employees’ cultural appropriation of AI systems within delivery platforms and manufacturing in Germany. Cultures of technology appropriation in workplaces emerge in a context of domination. Deviant forms of appropriation thus constitute a form of organisational misbehaviour for which employees must assume repercussions. Employees’ criticism of AI systems at their workplaces therefore differs str…
Covid‐19, economic crises and digitalisation: How algorithmic management became an alternative to automation
The COVID‐19 crisis witnessed a major rise in investment in software for the digital organisation and rationalisation of work, while investment in robotics is continuously lagging behind expectations. This article argues that we can understand this development as the continuation of the rise of algorithmic management as a technological fix for profitability crises. Thus, in the face of falling wage rates and a structural overaccumulation of capit…
Climate Youth to Power: Coalition Strategy as Social Movement Response to Youth Power Deficits
Based on semi-structured interviews, this article analyzes how activists in the Swiss climate movement deal with their youthfulness. The interviewees associate their youthfulness with institutional, discursive, and economic power deficits that reduce their political assertiveness. They respond to this with a strategy that relies on coalitions with “adult” organizations that compensate for these power deficits. These alliances, in turn, shape and …
Metabolic politics: Industrial relations as if nature mattered
Work is at the centre of the social metabolism with nature. This means that industrial relations (IR) are always also environmental politics. This article reviews core contributions to IR literature, showing that they do not systematically address this role of nature and separate the politics of work from their ecological basis. Drawing on historical case studies of the processing of three core products of capitalist modernity (fossil fuels, meat…
Bauarbeit im Klimawandel: Expansive Nutzbarmachung und ökologischer Eigensinn
Basierend auf verstehenden Interviews werden in diesem Beitrag die Umweltorientierungen von Schweizer Bauarbeiter*innen in Bezug auf den Klimawandel untersucht. Einerseits artikulieren die Befragten eine eher ablehnende Haltung gegenüber der Klimabewegung und dem staatlichen Klimaschutz, andererseits entwickeln sie eine ausgeprägte ökologische Kritik an ihrer eigenen Branche. Diese basiert auf einem verkörperten Umweltwissen, in dem die Erfahrung…
The valorization of interactions. Gift exchange, power and value creation on digital platforms
Technology companies are often worth billions, but they still must make their money through advertising. The research literature on the value creation of data-driven platform companies often refers to the expropriation of data or the exploitation of users. This article proposes a relational approach to the understanding of value creation on digital platforms such as social media channels or free internet services. To this end, it combines Marxian…
Environmental orientations at work: Scientific and embodied environmental knowledge
Based on two qualitative case studies undertaken in Switzerland, this article compares the positioning of Climate Strike activists and construction workers on questions of climate change, so as to analyse the impact of work practices on environmental orientations. Building on a praxeological approach, the article argues that communities of practice in workplaces and educational institutions influence environmental orientations. Everyday practice …
Arbeitskampf in der deutschen Saisonarbeit: Der unwahrscheinliche Streik bei »Spargel Ritter«
Wir analysieren den Streik rumänischer Saisonarbeitskräfte auf dem Betrieb »Spargel Ritter« im Mai 2020 und untersuchen, warum es hier zur seltenen Anwendung von Widerstandsstrategien kam. Anhand der Trias von »Loyalty«, »Exit« und »Voice« werden die Handlungsspielräume und Hürden migrantischer Arbeiter*innen im System der deutschen Saisonarbeit rekonstruiert. Im Fall Ritter verschmolzen scheinbar gegensätzliche Strategien der Arbeitenden zu eine…
Climate Change Vulnerability and the Politics of Production on Swiss Construction Sites
Although it is widely acknowledged that vulnerability to climate change is distributed unevenly, the significance of differences in working conditions remains understudied. This article explores workplace climate vulnerability through analysis of the ‘politics of production’, understood as the interaction between negotiations at the level of institutional regulation and those pertaining to the labour process. The matter is considered through inte…
The fear of uselessness: From the normalization to the enjoyment of ecological destructiveness
Protest against the mitigation of climate change has become a core issue for right-wing populism across the globe. Such politics can mobilize a widespread normalization of ecological destructiveness. Drawing on Frankfurt School critical theory and Lacanian psychoanalysis, this article argues that climate protection provokes such outrage because it appears to negate all the sacrifices that had to be made for the world of work. Thus, the normalizat…
Labour process theory in the ecological crisis
The articles collected in this special issue apply labour process theory (LPT) to analyses of the ecological crisis and thereby develop conceptual extensions to its basic frameworks. This editorial posits that such extensions are necessary on two levels: on a historical level , it becomes clear that in the present conjuncture many labour conflicts are shaped or even triggered by the ecological crisis. Even without any green transformation, the ec…
Artificial intelligence and the regulation of the social metabolism. On the interaction between AI and the biosphere
Political science (15 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Digital Economy and Work Transformation (8 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Engineering (7 works) · Politics (7 works) · Epistemology (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Economics (5 works)