Social Cohesion in the New Economy

Abstract

In this chapter we will analyse the cohesiveness (or otherwise) of working life from the narratives and experiences of our interviewees across the places of our research. These narratives were shaped by different economic sectors and different labour markets and by jobs differently classified in terms of skill. Our interviewees spoke from the perspectives of many work identities including those of knowledge worker, migrant worker, temporary worker, redundant worker, public/private sector worker, unemployed worker, inactive worker. These categories of work mapped onto and intersected with other components of identities such as gender, ethnicity, age and nationality that were also deployed in positioning people inside the spaces and relations of contemporary working life. National narratives of the economic realities of both contemporary and past economic eras also inform the working histories of our interviewees.