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

Utvecklingen av Artificiell Intelligens (AI) har gått i rasande fart under de senaste åren och har redan tillämpats på en rad olika sätt. Samtidigt har regleringen kring användningen av AI inte haft samma explosionsartade utveckling. Syftet med uppsatsen är därför att jämföra de olika förhållningssätten till AI-reglering hos Google, International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) och den Europeiska Unionen (EU), med fokus på de ideologiska teman som synliggörs i spänningen mellan dessa förhållningssätt. Därefter analyseras förhållningssätten med hjälp av den franska regleringsskolans perspektiv på post-fordistisk reglering. Detta görs i form av en dokumentstudie och en efterföljande ideologianalys.  Studiens resultat och analys visar att Googles syn på AI-reglering präglas av teknologiskt och ekonomiskt fokus, teknologisk solutionism och optimism samt en liberal och essentialistisk syn på intelligens och samhället. EU beskriver sig i sin tur sträva efter ett robust och flexibelt regelverk, vilket i praktiken framkommer som ett regelverk baserat på flexibla, liberala och kapitalistiskt styrda ideal där endast specifika undantagsfall regleras på ett robust vis. IFLAs förhållningssätt till AI-reglering framstår som högst motsägelsefullt. AI-utvecklingen beskrivs som något oundvikligt och som något IFLA står maktlösa inför, vilket får som konsekvens att IFLAs socialliberala och mänskligt orienterade kritik mot AI-utvecklingen och kapitalismen framstår som mer formell än reell. Generellt präglas alltså alla tre av organisationernas förhållningssätt till AI och AI-reglering starkt av den franska regleringsskolans post-fordistiska ideologier, men sprickor syns genom framförallt EUs och IFLAs osäkerhet kring AI-utvecklingens etiska och mänskliga konsekvenser. Detta gör mänskliga rättigheter till ett centralt fokus och den största kritiken av det kapitalistiska förhållningssättet till AI och AI-reglering. / The development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has accelerated rapidly in the last few years and has already been used in an array of different ways. Meanwhile the regulation of AI use has not had the same explosive development. The purpose of this thesis is therefore to compare the different positions to AI-regulation between Google, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and the European Union (EU), focusing on the ideological themes revealed in the tension between these positions. Thereafter the positions are analysed with the help of the French regulation school’s perspective on post-fordist regulation. This is done in the form of a document study and a subsequent ideology analysis. The results and analysis of the study show that Google's position on AI-regulation is infused with technological and economical focus, technological solutionism and optimism as well as a liberal and essentialist view of intelligence and society. The EU in turn describe themselves as striving for a robust and flexible regulation, which in practice is articulated as a regulative framework based on flexible, liberal and capitalist-oriented ideals where only specific exceptions are regulated in a robust way. IFLA's standpoint on AI-regulation appears to be highly contradictory. AI-innovation is seen as inevitable and as something IFLA is powerless to affect, which makes IFLA's socio-liberal and human-oriented critique of AI-innovation and capitalism appear more formal than real. In general all three of the organisations' positions to AI and AI-regulation are strongly infused with the French regulation school’s post-fordist ideologies, but cracks are visible especially in the EU's and IFLA's uncertainty towards the AI-innovation's ethical and humanitarian consequences. This brings human rights to the forefront, making them the biggest critique of the capitalist position on AI and AI-regulation.

Drawing upon a periodisation of socio-economic development based on the regulation approach, the paper conducts a historical spatial development analysis of Vienna in its broader territory and multi-level perspective. The National context and the East-West cleavages mark the geography of the study. This periodisation is the basis to understand the strategies of Vienna in changing territorialities, the social forces and discourses that are reflected in the present context of Europeanisation, internationalisation and integration of border regions. A critical institutionalist approach is used to analyse the hegemonic liberal and populist discourses and strategies. The lessons taken in this section build the path to outline windows of opportunity for progressive politics, which are sketch out in the last section of the article. The ideas exposed in the paper are partial results of broader research carried out in the frame of DEMOLOGOS, an EU financed project. (authors' abstract) / Series: SRE - Discussion Papers

Student Number: 9710860W School of Education Doctor of Philosophy / The study investigates the extent to which primary school teachers understood and implemented the requirements of the continuous assessment programme that has been introduced in primary schools in Swaziland. By focussing on teaching and learning activities that occurred during eight teachers’ lessons within the Salesian-Ekutsimuleni zone in Manzini, and what they expressed as intentions and justifications for these activities, it tries to clarify, in particular, the relationship between their assessment strategies and the broader educational principles promoted by the programme. Classroom observations and stimulated interviews were used to capture, respectively, data on what teachers did and principles that informed their behaviour. Codes abstracted from classroom observations and grounded on the views expressed by teachers indicate that they followed slavishly what was contained in the curriculum support materials with which they had been provided. Even though they used assessment strategies promoted by the Continual Assessment (CA) programme, their assessment strategies prioritized knowledge-retention rather than the cognitive development advocated by the programme and, in a specific sense, implied by lesson objectives they had to fulfil. The conclusion is that teachers could not translate the rhetoric of the CA programme into relevant professional judgement, decisions and practices without exposure to meaningful development programmes. Key Words Swaziland, Continuous Assessment, Criterion - Referenced Assessment, Mastery learning, Fordism, Post-Fordism

This research is a practice-based, theory-led, examination of forms of extraction under capitalism. The thesis addresses the question of where and how does extraction take place, both in and outside of the wage relationship. Directly employing Marx's concept of surplus extraction, but further extending the concept of extraction as an analytic tool, artistic method, and identifying its aesthetic form. Through the production of an original body of artistic video work, I explore three disparate sites where 'extraction' takes place and employ Science Fiction methods of narrative, the utopian impulse and the 'alienation effect' to critique global capitalism. Drawing on political economic theory, I argue that these new 'zones' of extraction have; forced the further 'subjectification' of labour; supported continued and on-going primitive accumulation - through the creation of global space/time; and promoted the intensification of both relative and absolute surplus value, through the mechanisation of reproduction and the blurring of work and life, through digital technology. The Video Trilogy sets up a dialogue between - fictionreality and space-time, and situates current readings of global extraction in a future/past space, where the inconsistencies of capital are played out. Extraction as concept is utilised to bring together, and expand on, both theoretical readings of the political economy, and to identify that extraction can be redeployed as a cultural or artistic form. I argue that extraction is mobilised through culture, but more importantly, I identify the specific cultural forms of extraction itself. By situating the research between theory and practice, I am able to represent, or interpret, the forms extraction takes - appropriating, performing and re-making them as material and subject within the videos. The research contributes to current critiques of capitalism, in critical theory, art theory, political economy and art-practice-as-research. The video submission brings together a range of aesthetic styles and techniques to construct an original alien world, which is an allegory of our own.

Este trabalho busca analisar o Acordo em Controle de Concentrações como um instrumento jurídico em benefício do setor industrial em face ao impacto do pós-fordismo periférico na economia brasileira. Para tal, se busca primeiramente investigar a disciplina do direito da concorrência dentro do sistema de regulação instituído pelo pós-fordismo periférico. Em seguida, passa-se à do Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica (CADE), em especial o procedimento de tomada de decisão no controle de concentrações. Nesse sentido, optou-se pela análise da decisão de aprovação do ato de concentração (fusão) Videolar-Innova, viabilizado por meio de um Acordo em Controle de Concentrações (ACC). Assim, o presente estudo busca verificar se o referido ACC poderia constituir um mecanismo de regulação em benefício ao setor industrial em face do impacto gerado pelas políticas do pós-fordismo. O método a ser utilizado é o materialismo histórico-dialético, e como referencial teórico a Teoria da Regulação e da Derivação. Por fim, por meio da conclusão do trabalho se buscou demonstra a articulação das forças sociais a modelar a política econômica em benefício de determinados setores, em especial o industrial, para enfrentar o processo de desindustrialização e desnacionalização gerados pelas políticas neoliberais no marco do sistema de regulação. Sendo esta articulação dentro das limitações para manobra da política econômica que lhe são impostas. / This paper proposes to analyze the Agreement on Control of Economic Concentration as a juridical instrument in benefit of the industrial sector face to the impact of peripheral post-Fordism on Brazilian economy. In order to achieve this, it has first sought to investigate the discipline of competition law within the system of regulation instituted by the peripheral post-Fordism. Afterwards, it analyses the Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica, especially the decision-making procedures in the control of economic concentration. That is why it was adopted the analysis of the decision to approve the merger agreement Videolar-Innova, which was able due to the Concentration Control Agreement. Therefore, it seeks to verify if this Agreement would constitute a regulation mechanism that benefits the industrial sector towards the impact reproduced by the politics of post-Fordism. The method to be applied is the Dialectical and Historical Materialism and, as theoretical reference, the Regulation and Derivation Theory. The conclusion of this work seeks to demonstrate the articulation of social forces that molds the economic politics in benefit of specific sectors, especially the industrial one, to struggle the deindustrialization and denationalization generated by the neoliberalism politics as a reference to the system of regulation, as this articulation is in the limits of economic politics manoeuvring which is imposed for them.

Este trabalho busca analisar o Acordo em Controle de Concentrações como um instrumento jurídico em benefício do setor industrial em face ao impacto do pós-fordismo periférico na economia brasileira. Para tal, se busca primeiramente investigar a disciplina do direito da concorrência dentro do sistema de regulação instituído pelo pós-fordismo periférico. Em seguida, passa-se à do Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica (CADE), em especial o procedimento de tomada de decisão no controle de concentrações. Nesse sentido, optou-se pela análise da decisão de aprovação do ato de concentração (fusão) Videolar-Innova, viabilizado por meio de um Acordo em Controle de Concentrações (ACC). Assim, o presente estudo busca verificar se o referido ACC poderia constituir um mecanismo de regulação em benefício ao setor industrial em face do impacto gerado pelas políticas do pós-fordismo. O método a ser utilizado é o materialismo histórico-dialético, e como referencial teórico a Teoria da Regulação e da Derivação. Por fim, por meio da conclusão do trabalho se buscou demonstra a articulação das forças sociais a modelar a política econômica em benefício de determinados setores, em especial o industrial, para enfrentar o processo de desindustrialização e desnacionalização gerados pelas políticas neoliberais no marco do sistema de regulação. Sendo esta articulação dentro das limitações para manobra da política econômica que lhe são impostas. / This paper proposes to analyze the Agreement on Control of Economic Concentration as a juridical instrument in benefit of the industrial sector face to the impact of peripheral post-Fordism on Brazilian economy. In order to achieve this, it has first sought to investigate the discipline of competition law within the system of regulation instituted by the peripheral post-Fordism. Afterwards, it analyses the Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica, especially the decision-making procedures in the control of economic concentration. That is why it was adopted the analysis of the decision to approve the merger agreement Videolar-Innova, which was able due to the Concentration Control Agreement. Therefore, it seeks to verify if this Agreement would constitute a regulation mechanism that benefits the industrial sector towards the impact reproduced by the politics of post-Fordism. The method to be applied is the Dialectical and Historical Materialism and, as theoretical reference, the Regulation and Derivation Theory. The conclusion of this work seeks to demonstrate the articulation of social forces that molds the economic politics in benefit of specific sectors, especially the industrial one, to struggle the deindustrialization and denationalization generated by the neoliberalism politics as a reference to the system of regulation, as this articulation is in the limits of economic politics manoeuvring which is imposed for them.

In this thesis, I argue that the globalization of production has weakened the power and efficacy of labor unions in the United States. I describe the globalization of production as a set of transformations in both the institutional structure of the economy and in the organization of production, and discuss how these transformations have impacted workers and unions in the American economy. The theoretical framework I employ is the social structure of accumulation approach, which emphasizes the importance of the institutional structures of capitalist economies and how their interaction with forms of production organization and systems of labor control helps to determine levels of aggregate economic growth, the profit rates of individual firms, and the distribution of power, resources, and wealth among economic agents. I argue that the globalization of production involves the transition from the social structure of accumulation of segmentation to the globalized production social structure of accumulation, and the displacement of Fordist mass production by lean production as the dominant paradigm of production organization.Lean production and the globalized production social structure of accumulation involve a transformation in the relationship between firms, workers, and the state. The changing circumstances and economic conditions which these transformations have produced, and the failure of labor unions to understand, appreciate, and effectively respond to them, have been responsible for the rapid and sustained decline in the membership, power, and efficacy of organized labor in the United States. Through case studies on the automobile and clothing industries, I show how the way in which these transformations have materialized in the specific contexts of two industries with different competitive conditions, organizational structures, and levels of capital-intensity have produced very disparate and dissimilar outcomes for the workers in these indust ries.

International migration is a significant issue in many contemporary societies. It is often analysed through the frame of different representational models. This thesis argues the need for a conceptualization of the migrant through the Deleuzian philosophy of immanence, and immaterial labor practice. The first part of the thesis discloses the problematic aspect of representation and places the figure of the migrant in the Deleuzian philosophy of immanence. The second part of the thesis is devoted to the analysis of the dominant mode of economy in contemporary capitalist societies – post-Fordism. Deleuzian angle of the migrant, which is based on desire, change, deterritorialization, and affect is deeply connected with post-Fordist economy and one of its practises – immaterial labor. With immaterial labor, which is based on the intellectual capabilities of human beings build a relation through communication and affect, being the dominant work practise nowadays, this practise as well as the figure of migrant is placed in the field of immanence. This field is based on the refusal of any kind of representation. It places the being in the material world, which finds itself in continuous process of becoming through the creation of relations. Thus, the figure of the migrant, whose life is based on the intensified creation of relations is the paradigmatic form of all subjectivity under post-Fordist logic and conditions, which is based on intensified creation of relations for the... [to full text] / Šiuolaikinėse visuomenėse tarptautinė migracija tampa vis aktualesniu reiškiniu. Akademinėje literatūroje migracija dažniausiai nagrinėjama pasitelkiant įvairius reprezentacinius modelius. Šis magistro darbas skirtas migracijos konceptualizavimui per imanentiškos Gilles Deleuzo filosofijos prizmę bei nemateriaulaus darbo praktiką. Pirma darbo dalis pristato bei analizuoja reprezentacijos, kaip reiškinio, problematiką ir diskutuoja migranto figūros priklausomybę imanentinei Deliozo filosofijos terpei. Antroji darbo dalis skirta dominuojančios šiuolaikinio kapitalizmo ekonomikos rūšies – post-Fordizmo – analizei. Migranto konceptas, aptariamas per Deliozo imamentiškos filosofijos prizmę yra pagrįstas šiai filosofijai priklausančiais konceptais: troškimu, pokyčiu, deteritorializacija, afektu, kurie yra tampriai susiję su post-Fordizmo ekonomika bei viena iš jos praktikų – nematerialiu darbu. Kadangi tiek nematerialaus darbo logika, tiek migranto būtis remiasi žmogiškuoju gebėjimais mąstyti, užmegzti ryšį per komunikacijos aktą bei sukelti afektą, abu konceptai yra patalpinami į imanentišką lauką. Imanencija paremta bet kokios reprezentacijos, kuria remiamas transcendcijos kūrimas, atmetimu bei būties patalpinimu į materialų pasaulį, kuriamą iš intensyvumų mainais paremtų ryšių. Tokiu būdu migrantas, kurio būtis paremta intensyviu ryšių kūrimu bei perkūrimu, tampa paradigmatišku viso post-Fordizmo ekonomikos, kuriai būdingas intensyvus ryšių kūrimas siekiant sukurti vis... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-17T18:10:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTACAO_PAULO ROBERTO CAMPELO FONSECA E FONSECA.pdf: 1215803 bytes, checksum: 2a6c4426024e7dd6299566c1f5a1a952 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-03-26 / Demonstrate and purposes that vocational education takes on Brazil in the XXI Century is the objective of this work. To this was done a study of the Fordist State and his quest for full employment, as well as the post-Fordist and his search for employability State. In the Brazilian context showed how professional education becomes a means to the restructuring process in the passage from the twentieth to the twenty-first century. This transformation in education from Fordism to post-Fordism in your peripheral way in Brazil, mainly characterized by the increase in workers' education level guided in Toyotism, and changing a professional education focused on promoting only technical skill, one focused on the promotion of personal skills. Thus, presence up from the twenty-first century, the deployment of a new professional education that will meet the requirements of the new capital accumulation regime passing emerge in Brazil. / Demonstrar a forma e os propósitos que a educação profissional assume no Brasil no Século XXI é o objetivo deste trabalho. Para isso foi feito um estudo do Estado fordista e de sua busca pelo pleno emprego, bem como do Estado pós-fordista e sua busca pela empregabilidade. No contexto brasileiro mostramos como a educação profissional transforma-se em meio à reestruturação produtiva na passagem do século XX para o século XXI. Essa transformação na educação profissional do fordismo para o pós-fordismo em sua forma periférica no Brasil, caracteriza-se principalmente pelo aumento no nível de escolaridade dos trabalhadores pautado no toyotismo, e na mudança de uma educação profissional voltada para promover somente qualificação técnica, por uma voltada para a promoção de competências pessoais. Assim, presencia-se a partir do século XXI, o desdobramento de uma nova educação profissional que venha a atender as exigências do novo regime de acumulação do capital que passa emergir no Brasil.