Positioning Stories: Accounting for Insecure Work.
How do structural features of work shape workers' interpretations of precarity, or the stories they tell? This article draws on 120 interviews with four groups of workers who confront temporal and spatial instability: Texas-based agricultural and oilfield workers and NYC-based adjunct instructors an...
| Publicado en: | American Sociological Review Vol. 90; no. 3; pp. 493 - 521 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Sage Publications Inc.
Jun2025
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=185388208&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 185388208 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00031224 ASC jtl: American Sociological Review issn: 00031224 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Jun2025 vid: 90 iid: 3 pid: 344 pub: Sage Publications Inc. artinfo: ui: 185388208 10.1177/00031224251328393 ppf: 493 ppct: 28 formats: tig: atl: Positioning Stories: Accounting for Insecure Work. aug: au: Griesbach, Kathleen affil: University of Texas at Austin su: New York (State) Texas Self-evaluation Work Job security Work environment Interviewing Blue collar workers Professional identity Psychological adaptation Uncertainty Storytelling Temporary employment Sociodemographic factors Psychosocial factors Experiential learning Psychology of agricultural laborers Research funding Statistical sampling Research methodology sug: subj: Self-evaluation Work Job security Work environment Interviewing Blue collar workers Professional identity Psychological adaptation Uncertainty Storytelling Temporary employment Sociodemographic factors Psychosocial factors Experiential learning New York (State) Texas Marketing Research and Public Opinion Polling Farm Labor Contractors and Crew Leaders Support activities for crop production Psychology of agricultural laborers Research funding Statistical sampling Research methodology keyword: narratives precarity space time work narratives precarity space time work ab: How do structural features of work shape workers' interpretations of precarity, or the stories they tell? This article draws on 120 interviews with four groups of workers who confront temporal and spatial instability: Texas-based agricultural and oilfield workers and NYC-based adjunct instructors and delivery workers. I find that rather than adopting one dominant individualizing story, as previous research suggests, workers instead move between what I call positioning stories : narratives that interpret their work's particular structural features. In doing so, workers combine individualistic and structural frames to cope with their positional uncertainty. Depending on the specific tempo and geography of their work, workers account for spatial instability in stories about sacrifice and self-improvement; they interpret temporal instability in stories about addiction and the burden of time passing without progress. Workers combine these with stories highlighting meaning and exploitation in their labor process. These findings reveal how structural precarity impedes a cohesive narrative by disrupting identities and life projects, but it also undermines the credibility of individualistic accounts. The resulting narrative fragmentation may inspire a wide range of responses, from resignation to contestation. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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