Precarity of Life Arrangements: A Perspective on Precarious Working and Living Conditions Using the Concept of Recognition

Abstract

Recognition has not previously played a systematic role in precarity research, even though precarity—closely related to employment or extended to the life context—also challenges the recognition of relationships. Consequently, we have developed an empirically based perspective on precarity of life arrangements that has been expanded using the concept of recognition (HONNETH, BUTLER). The empirical foundation is provided by partially guideline-based and partially narrative-based individual and couple interviews with 24 precarious workers (who are employed in insecure, flexible or e.g., part time positions and/or have a low income), which we have analyzed in a case-reconstructive and case-comparative manner, based on the hermeneutic sociology of knowledge. We illustrate the strengths of our eight-dimensional heuristic by using the example of one precarious worker and two precariously employed couples. With our perspective expanded by recognition, the subject-oriented and knowledge-sociological interpretations of precariously employed "individuals in relationships," as well as the accumulations of various strains essential for life-arrangement research, become visible. In addition, this allows us to understand the constitutional contexts, relations and interconnections of different dimensions of precarity. Our heuristic might therefore also inspire further research that is focused on the multidimensionality and complexity of insecure living conditions.