[p2p-research] Fwd: Fwd: Freeter : young people who deliberately chose not to work ( ... within the expectations of the dominant socio-culture ? )

[Michel Bauwens]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Andy Robinson <ldxar1 at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 1:32 AM
Subject: Re: [p2p-research] Fwd: Freeter : young people who deliberately
chose not to work ( ... within the expectations of the dominant
socio-culture ? )
To: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>


Yes, and there are freeters everywhere - the Japanese are unusual in giving
it a name.  BTW there is also a "Freeter Union" which organises protests
against neoliberalism and the government.
http://freeter-union.org/mayday/index-en.html

This is the stratum which provides most of the participants in autonomous
activism throughout the global North.  The term "neet" is sometimes used in
English.

In post-autonomism "emarginati" has some similar connotations, though it
refers mainly to those within the group who have (marginal) work.

There is a similar category in parts of the South - in Africa, the term used
is "youth".  A "youth" is anyone who is too old to be, or is no longer, a
child within a family but who is not (yet) capable of starting a family
her/himself - hence covering students, unemployed and emarginati.  "Youths"
are the perennial agents of protest and revolt.

I've seen articles discussing similar strata in other countries too - for
example, India and Egypt.

A similar group appears in mainstream scholarship and is given a special
role in social movements also - three cases that come to mind - the Cold War
discourse blaming communism on "disillusioned intellectuals" (usually
ex-students unable to get jobs), accounts of Italy which blame the
proportion of educated unemployed for autonomia, and accounts of nationalism
such as Anthony D. Smith's which view a similar stratum as the generator of
emergent nationalisms and ethnic revival.  (In these cases the "educated"
freeter has a special position).

cf. also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori

bw
Andy



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