Carr, Melissa and Kelan, Elisabeth K (2023) Between Consumption, Accumulation, and Precarity: The Psychic and Affective Practices of the Female Neoliberal Spiritual Subject. Human Relations, 76 (2). pp. 258-285. DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267211058577
Carr, Melissa and Kelan, Elisabeth K (2023) Between Consumption, Accumulation, and Precarity: The Psychic and Affective Practices of the Female Neoliberal Spiritual Subject. Human Relations, 76 (2). pp. 258-285. DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267211058577
Carr, Melissa and Kelan, Elisabeth K (2023) Between Consumption, Accumulation, and Precarity: The Psychic and Affective Practices of the Female Neoliberal Spiritual Subject. Human Relations, 76 (2). pp. 258-285. DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267211058577
Abstract
Why do gig workers perceive work practices as aspirational in spite of their precarity? Selling beauty products through their networks appeals to many women as a convenient way to earn an income. Drawing on interviews and observations with women distributors of beauty products in a network marketing company, this article shows how aspirational messaging that appears spiritual is used to encourage these women to think and feel that they are in charge of their own destiny while making it difficult for those women to articulate the precarious conditions that are associated with such work. Practices that encourage those women to think in specific ways include internalising the right spiritual dispositions, developing as an entrepreneurial spiritual subject and selling the self. Women are also encouraged to feel in specific ways by monitoring how they feel about themselves and others. The article shows how ‘thinking rules’ and ‘feeling rules’ are used to construct an ideal female neoliberal spiritual subject in new forms of organising who is selling and consuming beauty products while aspirational-spiritual messaging makes it difficult to articulate precarity.
Item Type: | Article |
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Uncontrolled Keywords: | affective Life; neoliberalism; network marketing; precarity; psychic life; spirituality; precarity; neoliberalism; spirituality; psychic life; affective life; network marketing |
Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences Faculty of Social Sciences > Essex Business School |
SWORD Depositor: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
Depositing User: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
Date Deposited: | 13 Oct 2021 14:52 |
Last Modified: | 16 May 2024 20:53 |
URI: | http://repository.essex.ac.uk/id/eprint/31077 |
Available files
Filename: 00187267211058577.pdf
Licence: Creative Commons: Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0