Precarity and processes of classification: conflictual concept of class, labour-power and caring

This article presents exploratory research on precarity and aims to contribute to the debate around class and precarity. The social conditions of people in precarious work are interpreted as conditions of daily struggles, which are conceptually linked to a broader and conflictual concept of class. Conflicts and daily struggles within precarity are then central for the approach of this exploratory research. The concept of ‘labour-power’ is centralised to understand how the precarisation of employment is connected to social processes around class. For participants, being in paid employment is crucial in order to attain decent standards of living, that is: they have to be able to sell their labour-power as a commodity. We conclude that being in precarious employment tends to reduce them to simple owners of labour-power and tends to destabilise the material basis for caring. The originality of this article is about presenting an empirical study on how a conflictual concept of class may make sense of people in precarious employment and their daily struggles.