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Masters of none: rehearsing work and life at a training centre in Lyon

Shehata, Eman (2024) Masters of none: rehearsing work and life at a training centre in Lyon. PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Identification Number: 10.21953/lse.00004805

Abstract

At French training centres, employment agencies and fairs, simulation and ‘learning by doing’ have risen to the fore as a state-sponsored solution to an unprecedented surge in unemployment. Presented as an egalitarian approach by government officials, sensationalized by the media and turned into a pathological phenomenon, the rise of so-called ‘fake companies’ that train the unemployed has raised questions about the place that work occupies in French people’s lives. Grounded in 14 months of fieldwork at a practice company in Lyon, this thesis traces the emergence of a rehearsal boom in France through the lifeworlds of the people who design situational learning schemes as well as those who enrol in them in pursuit of a better livelihood. Like volunteer work and workfare, practice work (also referred to as ‘fake work’ or ‘parallel work’) has an indeterminate and liminal status. This study asks what makes people simulate work and pays attention to the unfolding social relationships, inequalities, desires, intimacies, tensions, and paradoxes that arise in the context of workplace rehearsal. It moves away from a narrow focus on neoliberal governmentality to focus instead on how people reproduce capitalist realities.

Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
Additional Information: © 2024 Eman Shehata
Library of Congress subject classification: G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GN Anthropology
H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
Sets: Departments > Anthropology
Supervisor: Weszkalnys, Gisa and James, Deborah
URI: http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/4805

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