Precarious Subjects: Anticipating Neoliberalism in Northern Italy's Workplace

• Published in: American anthropologist Vol. 112; no. 1; pp. 38 - 53
• Main Author: MOLE, Noelle J
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Malden, USA Wiley Periodicals, Inc 01.03.2010; Blackwell Publishing Inc; American Anthropological Association; Wiley; Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Subjects: affect; Anthropology; Anticipation; Anxiety; Capitalism; Citizens; Cultural anthropology; Economic liberalism; Employment; Ethnology; Europa; Harassment; Italy; Labor; Labor market; Labour force; Neoliberalism; Political anthropology; Politics; Privatization; Social relations. Intercultural and interethnic relations. Collective identity; Social structure and social relations; Subjectivity; Unemployment; Work environment; Work place; Workers; Southern Europe; Italy; Consequence; Labour; Neo-liberalism; Precariousness; Subjectivity
• ISSN: 0002-7294; 1548-1433
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1433.2009.01195.x

In Italy, the term precarizzazione (precarious-ization) refers to the process of implementing neoliberal policies to transition toward a semipermanent and privatized labor regime but also to the normalization of psychic uncertainty and hypervigilance of worker-citizens. In this article, I examine "precarious workers" and a psychological harassment called "mobbing," specifically, and suggest that these practices of labor exclusion of a transitional work regime produce emergent subjectivities through an analytics of anticipation. I illustrate the social, political, and psychic effects of imagining neoliberalism, as Italians do in this context, not as complete but, rather, as a metadiscursive object of emotionally charged apprehension and anticipation.