Liberal-democratic theories of knowledge work suggest that labour and capital are no longer at odds in the information society. This dissertation critiques such a position, proposing that knowledge worker professions, or ones it describes as involving forms of immaterial labour, are subject to new regimes of exploitation and emergent modes of resistance within post-Fordism. The study begins by surveying competing theoretical perspectives on knowledge work, and moves on to consider the ethical questions, epistemological foundations, and methodological choices involved in carrying out engaged inquiries into collective organization by immaterial labourers. The dissertation’s empirical contribution is comprised of three case studies of labour organization by knowledge workers. The first is the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, an “open-source” union formed in 1998 by contract workers at Microsoft. The second is the Aliant clerical/call-centre workers in Moncton, New Brunswick, who certified a bargaining unit through the Communication, Energy and Paperworkers Union in 2001. The third is the Collettivo PrecariAtesia, a self-organized group of Roman workers formed at Atesia, Europe’s largest call centre, in 2004. Drawing on these and other contemporary examples, the dissertation suggests that, in its most promising articulations, the organization of immaterial labour is occurring at the intersection of spontaneous struggles by workers and a process of union renewal underway within certain sectors of the established labour movement. These cases also point to the potential of collective organizing occurring around precarity, or the increasing financial and existential insecurity arising from the flexibilization of labour. Both of these processes, the dissertation concludes, involve a process of adaptation to post-Fordism, in which new forms of organization, new subjectivities, and new social demands are being produced. / Thesis (Ph.D, Sociology) -- Queen's University, 2008-06-11 13:37:24.045

Esports gaming is a new subject within various fields of research. Typically, research explores the relationships between games and its players or the developers. By contrast this thesis examines the highest level of play within gaming, professional players. To do so, it utilizes the example of League of Legends. Created in 2009, League of Legends has rapidly grown to become one of the largest online multiplayer games with a massive Esports scene that matches or exceeds that of traditional sports such as Basketball or Baseball. But what factors contribute to this sudden rise in League of Legends Esports popularity and how have professional players adjusted over the years? This thesis explores these questions and the overall evolution of professional teams and League of Legends over the course of its Esports growth. It finds that League of Legends is unique in its use of the immaterial labour and digital labour of professional players. Through a concept called the “Meta”, League of Legends is able to mimic traditional sports and maintain interest in its game. Further for professional players the existence and evolution of the “Meta” sharply influences the need for organizational restructuring over the years. Players and teams become complex organizations in which players’ transition from gamers to become workers in Esports. Exploring the League of Legends Esports setting uncovers a unique combination of sport and work within a new digital context. / Thesis / Master of Philosophy (MA) / The goal of this work is to explore the lives and labour of League of Legends professional players. Created in 2009, League of Legends rapidly grew to be one of the most played and watched Esport game in the world. Professional players are often heralded as celebrities and their decisions impact the larger League of Legends and Esports community. This work examines the realities of Esports for professional players. It further analyzes the structure and organization of play and work in the League of Legends Esports setting. For the developer, Riot Games, Esports serves a variety of purposes and this thesis explores this and the contributions of Esports professionals to the development of the game.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T18:15:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Sharine Machado Cabral Melo.pdf: 5100536 bytes, checksum: d23a1defcbad9ce879b248402f13e1ac (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-11-27 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The aim of this thesis is to draw a genealogy of the events which led creation to be considered as an integrated activity of capitalism. The creative act, which had the fine Arts as its leading exponent, had been regarded as a natural or divine gift , an exception to the economic regime based on scarce resources and on the value extracted from physical strength. However, in the last years, utterances of creative economy or cultural economy have been focusing on creation to generate social and economic wealth. This tendency is visible when contemporary capitalism is studied in the context of immaterial labour, which has a tangible dimension (the materiality of art works or the bodies which produced them), but it is centred essentially on cooperation, signs and affects, extending itself throughout the capture of subjectivity and of the power of life itself. The hypothesis is that the artists are to be seen as entrepreneurs: those who invest their own lives in search of wealth. Mainly, two theoretical trends were used: researches on biopolitic, governmentality and neoliberalism, which had been initiated by Foucault and expanded by Rose, Negri, Lazzarato, Hardt, among others; and researches about creative economy and cultural industries, exposed by British researchers, such as Bennett, Oakley and Hesmondhalgh, who were partly influenced by Cultural Studies. In order to specify Latin American issues, Canclini s work was also used. There are references about Art History, these include: Gombrich, Shiner and Danto; Spinoza s philosophy and Peirce s semiotics have also been utilized as groundwork for the discussion. Aesthetic was specially studied from Kant s, Schiller s, Osborne s and Deleuze s works. Finally, quantitative and qualitative researches were done to investigate the daily practise of the artists. In conclusion, there are opportunities for the arts, but it is necessary to prevent the artistic movements to enclose themselves in their own production chain or to invest only on funding, disputing for public attention. There are new ways of labour exploitation, but artistic power resists or adapts itself to political and economic affairs / O objetivo desta tese é traçar uma genealogia dos acontecimentos que levaram a criação a ser vista como uma atividade integrada ao capitalismo. Se o ato de criar, tendo as Belas Artes como expoente, já foi considerado um dom divino ou natural , uma exceção ao regime baseado na escassez de recursos e na extração de valor da força física, atualmente, enunciados sobre a economia criativa ou a economia da cultura incidem sobre ele e buscam gerar ganhos sociais e econômicos. Essa tendência se apresenta na leitura do capitalismo contemporâneo pelo viés do trabalho imaterial , que tem uma dimensão tangível (a materialidade das obras ou os corpos que os produziram), mas é centrado essencialmente na cooperação, nos signos e nos afetos, estendendo-se à captura das subjetividades e da potência da vida. A hipótese é que os artistas passam a ser vistos como empreendedores: aqueles que investem a própria vida em busca de riquezas. Foram usadas principalmente duas correntes teóricas: pesquisas sobre biopolítica, governamentalidade e neoliberalismo, iniciadas por Foucault e expandidas por Rose, Negri, Lazzarato, Hardt, entre outros; e pesquisas sobre economia criativa e indústrias culturais, representadas por Bennett, Oakley e Hesmondhalgh, e em parte influenciadas pelos Estudos Culturais. Para marcar as especificidades da América Latina, foi usada principalmente a obra de Canclini. Também há referências da História da Arte, como Gombrich, Shiner e Danto; além da filosofia de Spinoza e da Semiótica de Peirce, como base para as discussões. A Estética foi estudada a partir de textos de Kant, Schiller, Osborne e Deleuze. Por fim, foram realizadas pesquisas quantitativas e qualitativas, com o propósito de investigar o dia a dia do fazer artístico. Conclui-se que há oportunidades para as artes, mas é necessário cuidado para que as diversas correntes não se fechem em seus próprios circuitos de produção ou, na disputa por atenção, invistam somente nos ciclos de financiamento. Há novas formas de exploração do trabalho, mas a potência artística resiste ou, por vezes, adapta-se às questões da política e da economia

should one react against the laziness of railway tracks between the passage of two trains investigates the everyday as experienced in the post-industrial landscape. Through the activities of walking and mapping, fieldwork is conducted during treks that follow the route of the railroad in the Kitchener-Waterloo region. I examine detritus as post-readymade artifacts of the industrial economy that has abandoned the area. Interventions of minimal gestures engage the inherent narratives of these discarded materials. Improvised assembled sculptures mark my route as a form of wayfinding that re-appropriates the neglected urban space of the railroad right of way. Online maps document these treks as open works of art to be completed by participants as self-guided walks. The activity of walking and assembling sculptures in these marginal landscapes is a playful strategy that resists the alienation of immaterial labour in our contemporary economic context.

The essay acts as a blueprint over my artistic practice. It is through the friction caused by th relations between the Keywords mentioned above I strive to achieve a dynamic which will act as an interlocutor between the fields, which are not separated but which fail to understand each others' logic and instead more or less intentionally seek to overwrite each other. / [I examensarbetet ingår utställningen: "Taking care of business":] The show was a total installation spanning over 7 days in which Studio Stök (Fredrik Fermelin and I) were constantly keeping the exhibition going: One room was filled with gelatine and lasers, was connected to another room by a tunnel in which a robotic vacuum cleaner constantly active. The other room was filled with +20 office chairs with incense sticks. Fredrik and I were never seen, but for 13 hours a day (07:00am-06:00pm), we mopped up the water from the "melting" gelatin so people could walk, lightning new incense, switching vacuum cleaners and mixing playlists with binaural beats for the tunnel. It was a way of catering an immediate sensation experienced as a viewer, no textualization was presented and enunciated indicating the exhibition was to be read in a certain way, and no artist was present creating a somewhat eerie sensation of a presence or absence. The smells were carried through the exhibition by the draft from the open doors and each room thus pre-empted the other. . Each room had an entrance and people were thus entering from two directions, there was no wrong way of entering and experiencing, the choreography of the exhibition created a sort of moebious strip which ended as quickly as it had lasted. During the week various flash events were held where the backspace which in normal circumstances acts as the entrance was opened. Material: Various Teknik: Installation The exhibition and partially the essays was a completely collaboration between Cecilie Hundevad Meng and Fredrik Fermelin as the artist group Studio Stök. The Exhibition and the essay(s) was only indirectly connected. / <p>The essay was abstractly linked to the exhibition.</p>

Nessa dissertação analiso, à luz de conceitos marxianos, as noções de trabalho imaterial - tal qual exposto por Antonio Negri e André Gorz, sobretudo - e de pós-grande indústria - desenvolvido por Ruy Fausto, Eleutério Prado e Leda Paulani -, as quais estão no cerne da interpretação desses autores acerca da atual fase do desenvolvimento do modo de produção capitalista. Com isso, pretendo, por um lado, apreender alguns problemas teóricos dessas tentativas de se entender a contemporaneidade com base nos conceitos de trabalho imaterial e de pós-grande indústria; e por outro, chamar a atenção para a força e a atualidade da obra de Marx e de conceitos como o de trabalho abstrato, de mais-valia relativa, de subsunção real do trabalho ao capital, de grande indústria, dentre outros. / In this dissertation I analyse, through marxian concepts, the notions of immaterial labour - as exposed by Antonio Negri and André Gorz, - and of post-great industry - developed by Ruy Fausto, Eletério Prado and Leda Paulani -, which are in the center of these authors\' interpretations concerning the current phase of development of the capitalist mode of production. With this, I intend to, on the one hand, apprehend the theoretical problems of these attempts of understand the contemporary capitalism based in the concepts of immaterial labour and pos-great industry; and on the other hand, call attention to the force and atuality of the work of Marx and the concepts of abstract labour, of relative plus-value, of real subsuntion of the labour to the capital, of great industry, amongst others.

Nessa dissertação analiso, à luz de conceitos marxianos, as noções de trabalho imaterial - tal qual exposto por Antonio Negri e André Gorz, sobretudo - e de pós-grande indústria - desenvolvido por Ruy Fausto, Eleutério Prado e Leda Paulani -, as quais estão no cerne da interpretação desses autores acerca da atual fase do desenvolvimento do modo de produção capitalista. Com isso, pretendo, por um lado, apreender alguns problemas teóricos dessas tentativas de se entender a contemporaneidade com base nos conceitos de trabalho imaterial e de pós-grande indústria; e por outro, chamar a atenção para a força e a atualidade da obra de Marx e de conceitos como o de trabalho abstrato, de mais-valia relativa, de subsunção real do trabalho ao capital, de grande indústria, dentre outros. / In this dissertation I analyse, through marxian concepts, the notions of immaterial labour - as exposed by Antonio Negri and André Gorz, - and of post-great industry - developed by Ruy Fausto, Eletério Prado and Leda Paulani -, which are in the center of these authors\' interpretations concerning the current phase of development of the capitalist mode of production. With this, I intend to, on the one hand, apprehend the theoretical problems of these attempts of understand the contemporary capitalism based in the concepts of immaterial labour and pos-great industry; and on the other hand, call attention to the force and atuality of the work of Marx and the concepts of abstract labour, of relative plus-value, of real subsuntion of the labour to the capital, of great industry, amongst others.

Esta pesquisa examina a conceituação de Marx acerca do trabalho produtivo, tanto em suas determinações gerais, quanto como categoria econômica particular do modo de produção capitalista. Tem por objetivo, em primeiro lugar, explicitar o critério distintivo do trabalho produtivo com relação ao trabalho improdutivo na forma de sociabilidade capitalista, analisando a relação que ambas as categorias estabelecem com o capital social, bem como entre si. Com isso, pretende-se explicitar os fundamentos da unidade da classe trabalhadora e a base de sua oposição ao capital. Em segundo lugar, temos como finalidade expor as transformações concretas que o trabalho experimenta após a subsunção ao capital, em sua relação com a categoria de trabalho produtivo. Assim, abordamos o trabalho complexo e o trabalho imaterial como formas do trabalho produtivo para o capital, em sua conexão com o desenvolvimento da produtividade do trabalho social. / This research examines Marx conception of productive labour concerning both its general determination and its existence as a particular economic category of capitalist mode of production. Firstly, it is aimed at eliciting the distinctive criteria of productive labour with regard to unproductive labour in capitalist form of sociability and analyzing the relationship that both categories establish with social capital, as well as to one another. On that basis, it is intended to show the chief principles of working class unity and its opposition to capital. Secondly, it is aimed at presenting concrete labour transformations after its subsumption to capital in respect to the category of productive labour. Thus, complex and immaterial labours as forms of labour productive to capital are approached in their connection to the development of productivity of social labour.

Esta pesquisa examina a conceituação de Marx acerca do trabalho produtivo, tanto em suas determinações gerais, quanto como categoria econômica particular do modo de produção capitalista. Tem por objetivo, em primeiro lugar, explicitar o critério distintivo do trabalho produtivo com relação ao trabalho improdutivo na forma de sociabilidade capitalista, analisando a relação que ambas as categorias estabelecem com o capital social, bem como entre si. Com isso, pretende-se explicitar os fundamentos da unidade da classe trabalhadora e a base de sua oposição ao capital. Em segundo lugar, temos como finalidade expor as transformações concretas que o trabalho experimenta após a subsunção ao capital, em sua relação com a categoria de trabalho produtivo. Assim, abordamos o trabalho complexo e o trabalho imaterial como formas do trabalho produtivo para o capital, em sua conexão com o desenvolvimento da produtividade do trabalho social. / This research examines Marx conception of productive labour concerning both its general determination and its existence as a particular economic category of capitalist mode of production. Firstly, it is aimed at eliciting the distinctive criteria of productive labour with regard to unproductive labour in capitalist form of sociability and analyzing the relationship that both categories establish with social capital, as well as to one another. On that basis, it is intended to show the chief principles of working class unity and its opposition to capital. Secondly, it is aimed at presenting concrete labour transformations after its subsumption to capital in respect to the category of productive labour. Thus, complex and immaterial labours as forms of labour productive to capital are approached in their connection to the development of productivity of social labour.

This thesis explores precarization of work and subject formation in seven post-referendum Brexit novels through theories of cognitive capitalism and biopolitical production. The analysis is anchored in Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s reconceptualization of Michel Foucault’s notion of biopolitics. Hardt and Negri combine the concept of biopolitics with contemporary theories of cognitive capitalism and immaterial labour, to illuminate how subjects are subsumed into a system of biopower in which capitalistic production has become biopolitical production. I argue that the Brexit novels examined in this thesis demonstrate how the intrinsic bond between production and life shapes the characters’ relationship to the referendum. As the characters are caught between individual goals and communal values, in a system that demands that they take sole responsibility for their own success while also being responsible democratic citizens, the referendum produces conflicted subjects that experience deep internal and external conflicts in relation to Brexit.