Made To Work Mobilising Contemporary Worklives

Made to Work analyses the conditions of mobile knowledge work (MKW) in contemporary worklives, contrasting and drawing parallels among three highly significant sectors of the Knowledge Economy: academia, information communication technology (ICT) management, and digital creative work. It introduces the concept of ‘corollary work’ to characterise the elusive work underpinning the configuration of workers, informational, technological, relational and infrastructural resources in (re)producing liveable worklives. It ultimately illuminates the myriad strands of corollary work that enable MKW to take place and contributes to emergent debates on how exploitation, at least in the domain of MKW, can be named, resisted and creatively subverted. In so doing, it opens up a conversation about the complex ways in which contemporary worklives are ‘made to work’, and about potential interventions to bring about more just worklife conditions in the future.

Introduction1. Corollary Work: The Mainstay of Mobile Knowledge Work2. Cities and Regions in the Placing of Worklives3. Everyday Worklife Placing4. Anticipatory Availability: ‘Time Work’ in the Worklives of ICT Managers and Digital Creatives5. ‘Reflexive Rhythmicity’ and the Making of Academic Worklives6. The Productivity Quest7.Identity Work: Animating the Mobile Knowledge WorklifeConclusion

Breda Gray is Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Limerick (Ireland). Luigina Ciolfi is Professor of Human Centred Computing at Sheffield Hallam University (UK). Aparecido Fabiano Pinatti de Carvalho is Associate Researcher at the Institute of Information Systems and New Media of the University of Siegen (Germany).