Studies of creative industries typically contend that creative work is profoundly precarious, taking place on a freelance basis in highly competitive, individualized and contingent labour markets. Such studies depict creative workers as correspondingly self-enterprising, self-reliant, self-interested and calculative agents who valorise care-free independence. In contrast, we adopt the ‘ethics of care’ approach to explore, recognize and appreciate the communitarian, relational and moral considerations as well as interpersonal connectedness and interdependencies that underpin creative work. Drawing on in-depth interviews with creative workers (...) in a range of marginal socio-cultural contexts, we argue that creative workers cultivate and sustain a diverse array of practices of care arising from an affective concern with the well-being of others. Far from being merely individualistic and crudely competitive actors, creative workers enact practical ethical responsibilities and affectivities towards a range of human and non-human others, including families, local communities and neighbourhoods, colleagues, artistic scenes and their adjacent genres, and surrounding national and linguistic cultures. In emphasizing the fundamental and structuring role of care in contingent labour markets our approach accords with recent trends in the social sciences that ‘affirmatively’—as opposed to ‘negatively’ and ‘suspiciously’—recognize that mutuality, solidarity and affectivity are powerful drivers of action on a par with or even exceeding market-driven self-centredness. (shrink)

As research on ethical consumers and consumption practices has continued to grow, a complimentary body of work concerned less with ethical consumption but more with ethics in consumption has emerged. Problematizing the divide between ethical and non-ethical consumption, this stream of research focuses on the domain of everyday and explores the moral struggles individuals face while engaging in ordinary consumption practices. However, the attention on the ordinary runs the risk of obscuring the contribution of the ‘extraordinary’ or the transcendental to (...) the ethical concerns embedded in the mundane flow of the everyday. This study addresses this blind spot and explores the ways in which religion is implicated in everyday consumption ethics. In doing so, I go beyond a view of religion as an individual trait and emphasize its role as a major institutional structure of the contemporary political economy. The empirical context of the study is the controversy over the so-called halal nail polish. The debate over the products’ appropriateness for Muslim women provides a fertile setting to explore how an ordinary object becomes an ethical problem amid changing relations between religion and market. In order to trace and analyse the linkages between daily practices and institutional dynamics I draw from the moral economy framework and discuss the multiple and conflicting moral repertoires that shape the ethical evaluations of the object. The study offers several contributions to the existing theorizations of everyday consumption ethics and moral economies of consumption. It also highlights the potential of interdisciplinary approaches in providing a holistic understanding of the ethical and moral dimensions of consumption. (shrink)

Increasing global competition has intensified the use of informal sector workforce worldwide. This phenomenon is true with regard to India, where 92% of the workers hold precarious jobs. Our study examines the dynamics of workplace dignity in the context of Indian security guards deployed as contract labour by private suppliers, recognising that security guards’ jobs were marked by easy access, low status, disrespect and precariousness. The experiences of guards serving bank ATMs were compared with those working in large reputed organisations. (...) The former reported loss of dignity though their inherent self-worth remained partially intact, whereas the latter reclaimed dignity despite the precarious working conditions and the absence of unions. Guards from large reputed organisations evolved strategies by which they took advantage of the client’s vulnerabilities, developed ‘thick’ relationships at work and immersed themselves in 'doing dignity work' to ensure that they are not disposable. ‘Doing dignity work’ was a visible device which involved actions that met or went beyond the norms laid down by the client and was used by security guards to limit the extent of their precariousness. Since the opportunity to reclaim dignity was facilitated by large reputed clients’ adherence to legal regulations, we see implications of the study for the moral economy. (shrink)