Review Essay: No More Separation between Paid Work and Leisure? Methodological and Empirical Challenges in the Debate about Post-Fordism

Abstract

This anthology reflects the spheres of working and living in a neo-liberal society from the viewpoint of cultural studies in European ethnology. Concentrating on daily life, it questions prognoses about regimes of production, new types of manpower and the rediscovery of new structures of society and economy as well as new types of societies. The book is not only about micro-studies—concentrating on micro-studies has often been criticized by both the science of history and cultural studies, which work empirically. The authors of this book work on the basis of ambitious methodological approaches such as "multi-sited-ethnography," which transgresses static fieldwork and is able to grasp the differential between paid work and leisure. These case studies are fully convincing, but reflections about the end of a society in which everyone has a job or about the culture of the "new economy" remain too speculative. The review attempts to place the articles within discussions about changing regimes of production. These discussions began mostly in the field of regulation theory, then in industrial sociology and finally in the sociology of work. Especially innovative methods are considered, which allow the reader to simultaneously analyze the spheres of living and working. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs050324