The Politics of Disablement and Precarious Work

Abstract

This project focuses on the paid and unpaid work done by people who identify as being disabled, neurodivergent, chronically ill, experiencing mental distress, and/or having impairments and who work in the gig economy. I will use the term 'disabled people' to keep the wordcount short.

The project shows that (and how) disablement oppression and exploitation through work take place within and outside waged work. The idea that unemployed people and gig economy workers are 'unproductive' / do not 'work' (much or at all) is false. The fewer resources and means for support one has, the more work they are forced to do themselves, on their own. In other words, austerity measures, precarious working conditions, disbelief from professionals and other people, and increased charges to social care (to name but a few examples) transfer and create more (unwaged) work for disabled people. This situation leaves disabled people with little time and resources to rest, resist, support themselves and others, and organise.

With this project, I highlight a wide variety of forms of work that disabled people in the gig economy do on a daily basis, and argue that this is work that current society, state institutions, employers, and the disabling capitalist system itself depend on. Instead of simply seeking either 'full employment' or 'the abolition of work', we instead need to first identify what work needs to be abolished, altered, and/or expanded. Such identification can be done by thinking beyond capitalist imperatives and enacting different ways of relating to one another.