Diane Perrons

Bio: Diane Perrons is an academic researcher from London School of Economics and Political Science. The author has contributed to research in topics: New economy & European union. The author has an hindex of 29, co-authored 108 publications receiving 2761 citations.

The New Economy and the Work–Life Balance: Conceptual Explorations and a Case Study of New Media

Abstract: Given the varied claims made about the new economy and its implications for the organization of work and life, this article critically evaluates some conceptualizations of the new economy and then explores how the new media sector has materialized and been experienced by people working in Brighton and Hove, a new media hub. New technologies and patterns of working allow the temporal and spatial boundaries of paid work to be extended, potentially allowing more people, especially those with caring responsibilities, to become involved, possibly leading to a reduction in gender inequality. This article, based on 55 in-depth interviews with new media owners, managers and some employees in small and micro enterprises, evaluates this claim. Reference is made to the gender-differentiated patterns of ownership and earnings; flexible working patterns, long hours and homeworking and considers whether these working patterns are compatible with a work‐life balance. The results indicate that while new media creates new opportunities for people to combine interesting paid work with caring responsibilities, a marked gender imbalance remains.

The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism

Abstract: Colin CROUCH, Polity, 2011, ISBN 9780745652214, £14.99 (pbk), 224 pp. As Colin Crouch maintains, despite the recent economic crises, neo-liberalism survives, not in the idealised form of self-regul...

Globalization and Social Change: People and Places in a Divided World

Abstract: 1. Analyzing Globalization and Social Change Part 1: Measuring and Theorizing Inequality and Uneven Development 2. Uneven Geographical Development within the Global Economy 3. Theorizing Uneven Development Part 2: Economic Integration, New Divisions of Labour and Gender Relations 4. The Global Division of Labour and the Feminization of Employment 5. The New Global Division of Labour and the Old Industrial Regions: Uneven Regional Development in the UK Part 3: The New Economy, Globalization and Geography 6. The New Economy and the Digital Divide: Global and Social Divisions 7. Living and Working in Superstar Regions Part 4: Shaping Development 8. Social Reproduction and the State 9. Globalization, Participation and Empowerment 10. Conclusion: Challenging the Divided World

Women's paid work and moral economies of care

Abstract: Female labour force participation has been increasing in recent decades, in part encouraged by state policies to raise the employment rate to encourage economic competitiveness and combat social exclusion. Social provision for care, however, has lagged behind this increase, creating practical and moral dilemmas for individuals and for society, facing parents with complex choices about how to combine work and care. In this paper, we draw on a qualitative study in London to explore the extent to which the large-scale entry of women into waged work is altering women's understandings of their duties and responsibilities to care for others. We conclude that their decisions are influenced by class position, entrenched gender inequalities in the labour market, varying abilities to pay for care and complex gendered understandings of caring responsibilities.

Migrant Men's Fathering Narratives, Practices and Projects in National and Transnational Spaces: Recent Polish Male Migrants to London

Abstract: Historically migrants have been constructed as units of labour and their social reproductive needs have received scant attention in policy and in academic literature. The growth in ‘feminist-inflected’ migration research in recent decades, has provoked a body of work on transnational care-giving that poses a challenge to such a construction, at least as it relates to female migrants in general and mothers in particular. Researchers, however, have demonstrated less interest in how migrant men give meaning to and perform their fathering roles. Such neglect is increasingly problematic in the context of rising social, political and academic interest in the significance of fathering in European (and other) societies. With the purpose of making a preliminary contribution to knowledge on migrant men's fathering narratives, practices and projects, this article draws on findings from interviews conducted with recent migrants from Poland to the UK. By focusing on migrant fatherhood, we add to the understanding of transnational care-giving by illuminating the many parallels between migrant mothering and fathering. Our findings are consistent with much of the literature on transnational mothering, highlighting tensions between breadwinning and parenting and the various strategies fathers deploy to reconcile these tensions. Nevertheless, we find that migrant men's fathering narratives, practices, and projects, while challenging the construction of male migrants as independent and non-relational, remain embedded within the dominant framework of the gendered division of labour. More uniquely, the article also demonstrates the importance of situated transnational analyses, in this case the institutional arrangements between the UK and European Union new Member States, which gave the Polish migrants privileged labour market access and social rights within the UK's highly differentiated migration regime. This access allowed mobility, settlement and or family reunion according to the migrant's specific circumstances and preferences with respect to the labour market and parenting.

In the social factory? Immaterial labour, precariousness and cultural work

Abstract: This article introduces a special section concerned with precariousness and cultural work. Its aim is to bring into dialogue three bodies of ideas — the work of the autonomous Marxist `Italian laboratory'; activist writings about precariousness and precarity; and the emerging empirical scholarship concerned with the distinctive features of cultural work, at a moment when artists, designers and (new) media workers have taken centre stage as a supposed `creative class' of model entrepreneurs. The article is divided into three sections. It starts by introducing the ideas of the autonomous Marxist tradition, highlighting arguments about the autonomy of labour, informational capitalism and the `factory without walls', as well as key concepts such as multitude and immaterial labour. The impact of these ideas and of Operaismo politics more generally on the precarity movement is then considered in the second section, discussing some of the issues that have animated debate both within and outside this movement, wh...

The Sexual Contract

Abstract: 1. Contracting In. 2. Patriarchal Confusions. 3. Contract, the Individual and Slavery. 4. Genesis, Fathers and the Political Liberty of Sons. 5. Wives, Slaves and Wage-Slaves. 6. Feminism and the Marriage Contract. 7. What's Wrong with Prostitution?

The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths

Abstract: Introduction: Thinking Big Again 1. From Crisis Ideology to the Division of Innovative Labour 2. Technology, Innovation and Growth 3. Risk-Taking State: From 'De-risking' to 'Bring It On!' 4. The US Entrepreneurial State 5. The State behind the iPhone 6. Pushing vs. Nudging the Green Industrial Revolution 7. Wind and Solar Power: Government Success Stories and Technology in Crisis 8. Risks and Rewards: From Rotten Apples to Symbiotic Ecosystems 9. Socialization of Risk and Privatization of Rewards: Can the Entrepreneurial State Eat Its Cake Too? 10. Conclusion