[Linganth] AAA 2017 CFP: Affective Labor and Compassionate Citizenship: Volunteering in Post-Fordist Societies

[Cecile Vigouroux]

Dear Colleagues,

This panel, for the 2017 AAA Annual Meeting, still has some space available. The abstract below reflects current contributions, but we welcome papers that explore voluntarism and unpaid work in various contexts. If you are interested in joining us, please submit a paper abstract (250 words max.) by Saturday, April 8 to kori.allan at newcastle.edu.au and cvigouro at sfu.ca. 

AAA 2017 CFP - Affective Labor and Compassionate Citizenship: Volunteering in Post-Fordist Societies

Co-organizers: Cecile B. Vigouroux (Simon Fraser University) and Kori Allan (University of Newcastle, Australia)

The privatization and devolution of social services under neoliberal governance has entailed, among other things, the rise of voluntarism and, more generally, (new and) different types of unpaid labor. Our panel examines the various forms of citizenship and belonging that characterize new affective labor regimes in different parts of the world (especially North America, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia). We show how unpaid labor has been instrumentalized by state institutions, non-profit organizations and private economic actors. We examine the ways in which migrants, students, workers or the unemployed are summoned to engage in unpaid work to perform civic duty or moral responsibility. On the ground this translates into voluntary work reframed as migrants’ willingness to be ‘integrated’ into their host society, or individuals’ motivation to be ‘active’ responsible citizens. For workers or the unemployed, volunteering may also be viewed as a self-investment in one’s human capital or as a means of increasing one’s employability. Volunteers are also often called into action by a surplus of affect or a sense of loss in the wake of service deficits, disaster or suffering (Adams 2013, Muehlebach 2012). Many of the papers thus highlight the ways in which unpaid work constructs not only new forms of subjectivities, but also ‘highly moralized forms of citizenship’ (Muehlebach 2012). We further interrogate the ways in which volunteer work is a site of productivity and potentiality that not only creates work-ready, active and compassionate citizens, but also new sources of value and profit (Adkins 2012, Adams 2013). Finally, we are attentive to how affective labor regimes are based on and reproduce particular inclusions and exclusions as well as relations of inequality.

-- 
Cécile B. Vigouroux
Associate Professor
Simon Fraser University
WMC 2644 
8888 University drive
Vancouver, BC Canada
V5A 1S6