Catégorie : The Materialities of Work and Life Places of Teleworkers

The end of era of disciplinary societies, which were strictly connected to industrial organization, the very nature of space have shifted. Space no longer represents organized order in which one is ascribed to a selected place which determines both identity and economic characteristics. Space is not a millieu in which one takes anticipated actions, orchestrated according to social curricula.

Previous, industrial categories such as public and private or home and work juxtapose which triggers a sense of crisis. Stability have been substituted by simultaneity, juxtaposition and dispersion (Foucault 1986: 22). Deleuze concise example depicts it vividly: “in the disciplinary societies one was always starting again (from school to the barracks, from the barracks to the factory), while in the societies of control [which replaced disciplinary societies – JG, MJ, MŻ] one is never finished with anything” (1992: 5).

Our presentation captures the tension between the daily life of individuals caused by the telework through visual material collected and commented by the teleworkers during their routine work.

A qualitative approach was applied to the study, since such a methodology allows to examine how the public-private dichotomy is realized on the daily basis in particular household realities. In the deep ethnographic study of 36 households several methods were applied to find a balance between methodological correctness and full access to daily practices conducted in households1.

The elements of direct observation were reduced and supported by the other methods, such as on line detailed diary conducted for one week per each teleworker or photo-essays including comments and photos generated by teleworkers by using disposable cameras.

The presentation allows to observe in the microscope the transformations of space that operates on two levels: level of mechanism of space and level of its representations. The main problem is that social representations of space are outdated and, by this very fact, stay in contradiction with social and individual experiences of space. For instance, social representations of home are embedded in XIX-century imaginary while contemporary experience of dwelling differentiation (public vs. private, ICT technologies, technologies, telework, etc.).

Note

1 Project title: So You are Staying at Home? The ethnographic study of the Teleworkers. Financed by National Science Centre, NCN.