Final Report Summary - PRODUCTION OF WORK (The production of work. Welfare, labour-market and the disputed boundaries of labour (1880-1938).)
The project investigated the practices that produced work in consensus and conflict, particularly in Austria and Germany. Since the late nineteenth century, work became more and more a matter of state policy which did not only regulate it and intervene in labour relations, but contributed substantially to bringing forth and normalizing new social facts: “work” in a new sense, as the “labour market”, or “unemployment”. Nevertheless, work was never exclusively the domain of the state. We therefore considered the different practices involved and their interrelations, not excluding those that appeared powerless and dominated: from various forms of administration and state policy, to collective representations, all the way to scholarly and individual representations in autobiographical writings, letters, or transcripts.
One focus of research was the labour market administration, labour intermediation and the various ways people made use of them. Related to that, we examined the interrelation between administrative practices and (scholarly) representations of labour market and working population. Further subprojects dealt with livelihood organized in the context of households and service, with livelihood and mobility, with forced and free workfare programs, with music as art and as a way to find a livelihood.
The project did not solely consider practices that were officially acknowledged as work. We included activities ranging from vocational employment (requiring training and providing a career and new forms of social security), to more ambiguous or allegedly traditional forms of livelihood (such as services in the context of household and farms), types of self-employment (often neglected in this research), all the way to highly disputed or illegitimate forms of searching for livelihood (begging, vagrancy or forced labour). We systematically constructed and compared these practices with the technique of Geometrical Data Analysis.
In our sources, a variety of terms were used: “work”, “vocation”, “employment”, “earning”, “livelihood”, “bread”, “making ends meet” etc. Often, the term “work” is completely missing; instead, there are terms describing particular practices. These multiple variations in language are not totally arbitrary, for the diverse forms of livelihood cannot be subsumed under a particular notion of work. They form part of the history of work, manifesting different, competing references at a time when things were still in flux.
In the range of options for making a living, vocational employment was the most prominent and prevalent reference. It required/promised aptitude and affinity, training, a career, social security, joy and fulfilment and a certain position in society. However, it remained an extraordinary point of reference; it was by no means a normality.
Our research disavows the notions of core/marginal work(ing class). The fight against illegitimate forms of livelihood was not an anachronism but just the flipside of the coin in the emerging welfare state, which related new social rights to new forms of work.
In this process, the relationship between state and citizens changed. Our analysis shows how categories like “unemployment”, “labour market” etc. became practical – not only as scholarly or administrative categories but also in the practices of people organizing their livelihood. We thereby elaborated the manifold ways people could refer to work, social rights and the state (administration): either by concurring, obeying, insisting, doubting or avoiding.
It seems inadequate to assume, as is commonly done, that the concept of work became more restricted in the twentieth century. Whereas work did become more clearly defined and regulated, at the same time it became a reference for all kinds of activities that were compared, altered, seen in contrast to normalized work, or remained disputed and ambivalent. More precisely, we can understand this process as establishing new differences and hierarchies.
One focus of research was the labour market administration, labour intermediation and the various ways people made use of them. Related to that, we examined the interrelation between administrative practices and (scholarly) representations of labour market and working population. Further subprojects dealt with livelihood organized in the context of households and service, with livelihood and mobility, with forced and free workfare programs, with music as art and as a way to find a livelihood.
The project did not solely consider practices that were officially acknowledged as work. We included activities ranging from vocational employment (requiring training and providing a career and new forms of social security), to more ambiguous or allegedly traditional forms of livelihood (such as services in the context of household and farms), types of self-employment (often neglected in this research), all the way to highly disputed or illegitimate forms of searching for livelihood (begging, vagrancy or forced labour). We systematically constructed and compared these practices with the technique of Geometrical Data Analysis.
In our sources, a variety of terms were used: “work”, “vocation”, “employment”, “earning”, “livelihood”, “bread”, “making ends meet” etc. Often, the term “work” is completely missing; instead, there are terms describing particular practices. These multiple variations in language are not totally arbitrary, for the diverse forms of livelihood cannot be subsumed under a particular notion of work. They form part of the history of work, manifesting different, competing references at a time when things were still in flux.
In the range of options for making a living, vocational employment was the most prominent and prevalent reference. It required/promised aptitude and affinity, training, a career, social security, joy and fulfilment and a certain position in society. However, it remained an extraordinary point of reference; it was by no means a normality.
Our research disavows the notions of core/marginal work(ing class). The fight against illegitimate forms of livelihood was not an anachronism but just the flipside of the coin in the emerging welfare state, which related new social rights to new forms of work.
In this process, the relationship between state and citizens changed. Our analysis shows how categories like “unemployment”, “labour market” etc. became practical – not only as scholarly or administrative categories but also in the practices of people organizing their livelihood. We thereby elaborated the manifold ways people could refer to work, social rights and the state (administration): either by concurring, obeying, insisting, doubting or avoiding.
It seems inadequate to assume, as is commonly done, that the concept of work became more restricted in the twentieth century. Whereas work did become more clearly defined and regulated, at the same time it became a reference for all kinds of activities that were compared, altered, seen in contrast to normalized work, or remained disputed and ambivalent. More precisely, we can understand this process as establishing new differences and hierarchies.