Work as the contemporary limit of life
Capitalism, the death drive, and the lethal fantasy of 'work-life balance
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5827652 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Peter Bloom (0000-0003-2225-6149, The Open University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 588-606 |
| Publication date | 2015-08-12 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Organization (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1350-5084 • E-ISSN: 1461-7323 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1350508415596604 |
| OpenAlex | W2174055818 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 27 |
| References cited | 78 |
This article introduces contemporary discourses of 'work-life balance' as a cultural fantasy revolving self-hood around employment and organizations. To do so, it draws on the Lacanian interpretation of the Freudian 'death drive' to highlight the importance of 'disequilibrium' for the construction of the subject and individual identification therein. More precisely, it reflects on the ways this structuring of self-hood associated with the impossible pursuit of 'equilibrium' maps out onto present desires for 'work-life balance' and its subsequent production of a regulated 'imbalanced' subject. It argues that individuals are maintained as subjects through their identification with and paradoxical enjoyment, or jouissance, from being 'imbalanced'. Consequently, capitalist work and organizations stand as the contemporary limit of 'life' through their fundamental role in producing and sustaining this 'imbalanced' subject in search of 'balance'. It is ironically in this longing to overcome this 'imbalance', to 'work to live', that individuals remain even more strongly a capitalist and organizational 'subject of desire'. They literally cannot go on subjectively 'living' without capitalist work
Disequilibrium · Freudian slip · Identification · Emotional Labor in Professions · Employment and Welfare Studies · Management and Organizational Studies
Responsible leadership & organizational change meet the death drive
Identity Work and Organizational Identification
Grounding in the unconscious
Clinical and critical
How digital fantasy work induces organizational ideal reversal? Long-term conditioning and enactment of digital transformation fantasies at a large alternative bank (1963–2019)
Interpretations of mindfulness practices in organizations
Work as affective experience
Scientization, instrumentalization, and commodification of mindfulness in a professional services firm
Extreme wellness at work
The value of desire
Purification or Pollution? The Debate over ‘Workplace Spirituality’
Gender Inequalities and Precarious Work–Life Balance in Italian Academia
The development of a smart political moral economy in Africa
The Fantasy of Do What You Love and Ludic Authoritarianism in the Videogame Industry
Seeking immortality
I wish I could work in my spare time’ Simondon and the individuation of work–life balance
Governing through accountability
The work–life management strategies of indoor female sex workers in Poland
Two sides of the same coin
Experimenting with work practices in a liminal space
Theorising work–life balance endeavours as a gendered project of the self
Control on the 'Boundary-Work' in Work-Life Articulation for Flexible Knowledge Workers. Insights into Gender Asymmetries
Mal-estar na sociedade de risco
It's My Passion and Not Really Like Work
Cold Winds and Warm Attachments
Public sector austerity cuts in Britain and the changing discourse of work-life balance
Adding University to work and life
Work and family in the United States
Conditions of liberty
Narratives of Organizational Identity and Identification
Being Regimented'
“Just be yourself!”
Identity Regulation as Organizational Control
Gendering organizational analysis
Engineering Culture
Women, Work, and Family
Death and Desire (RLE
Macintyre and the Manager
The Social Foundations of the Bureaucratic Order
The Power of the ‘Imaginary’ in Disciplinary Processes
Management Consultant Talk
From Flexibility to Work-Life Balance
Managing Identity
Civilization and Its Discontents
Work‐Life Integration
Work Less, Live More
Why work–life balance now
Boundary Control
The constraints of a ‘work–life balance’ approach
Workplace flexibility
Spillover Versus Compensation
The dream consultant
Family Friendly’ Employment Policies
Type of employment, work–family conflict and well‐being
The integration of paid work and the rest of life. Is post‐industrial work the new leisure
Work/Family Border Theory
Fantasies about work as limitless potential – how managers and employees seduce each other through dynamics of mutual recognition
Managing Managerial Identities
The International Journal of Psychoanalysis
Measuring work-life balance and its covariates
Work-Life ‘Balance’ in Europe
You Can Checkout Anytime, but You Can Never Leave
The Sublime Object of Entrepreneurship
Allowed into a Man's World' Meanings of Work-Life Balance
Work-life initiatives and organizational change
In search of the perfect manager? Work-life balance and managerial work
Rethinking 'mobile work
Work-Life Balance and Family Friendly Policies - in Whose Interest
Family Friendly Workplace Benefits
Family-Friendly Organizations? Work and Family Programs in the 1990s
Surf 's Up
| Unique citing works | 27 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,7 |
| Citation span | 2016 - 2026 (11) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 26 |