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The Roads to Disaffiliation: Insecure Work and Vulnerable Relationships

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  • Robert Castel

Abstract

This article attempts to deal with various forms of poverty. What do the long‐term unemployed, young people looking for work and on training schemes, single adults eligible for the RMI (guaranteed minimum income benefit), lone mothers, young couples crippled by the impossibility of paying bills and rent, all have in common? The author puts forward the hypothesis that they express a particular mode of dissociation from the social bond: disaffiliation. This is a different condition of misery from that of poverty in the strict sense. The latter can perhaps be read as a state, whose forms can be listed in terms of lack (lack of earnings, of housing, of medical care, of education, lack of power or of respect). By contrast, situations of destitution constitute an effect at the place where two vectors meet: one, the axis of integration/non‐integration through work; the other, an axis of integration/non‐integration into a social and family network. A model of four ‘zones’ of social life – integration, vulnerability, assistance and disaffiliation – constructed from pre‐industrial societies, may serve as a reference grid against which we can interpret contemporary social circumstances and the rise of social vulnerability. Present‐day insecurity largely results from the growing fragility of protective regulations which were implemented from the nineteenth century onwards in order to create a stable situation for workers: the right to work, extended social protection, coverage of social risks set up by the welfare state. We can describe the specific nature of present‐day insecurity as relating to the structure of wage society, its crisis or its disintegration since the mid‐1970s. Cet article vise à traiter des formes différentes de la pauvreté. Qu'ont en commun le chômeur de longue durée, le jeune en quête d'emploi et consommateur de stages, l'adulte isolé qui s'inscrit au RMI, la mère de famille ‘monoparentale’, le jeune couple étranglé par l'impossibilité de payer traites et loyers? L'auteur fait l'hypothèse qu'ils expriment un mode particulier de dissociation du lien social, la désaffiliation. Il est un autre pathétique que celui de la pauvreté stricto sensu. Si celle‐ci peut Ãtre lue comme un état dont on inventorie les formes en terme de manque (manque à gagner, à se loger, à se soigner, à s'instruire, manque de pouvoir ou de considération), l'auteur voudrait pour sa part envisager les situations de dénuement comme un effet, à la conjonction de deux vecteurs: un axe d'intégration‐non‐intégration par le travail, un axe d'insertion‐non‐insertion dans une sociabilité socio‐familiale. Un modèle des quatre ‘zones‘ de la vie sociale – d'intégration, de vulnérabilité, d'assistance et de désaffiliation – construit à partir des sociétés pré‐industrielles peut servir de grille de lecture pour interpréter la conjoncture sociale contemporaine et la remontée de la vulnérabilité sociale. S'agissant de la précarité d'aujourd'hui, elle relève dans une large mesure de la fragilisation de régulations protectrices qui se sont mises en place à partir du XIXe siècle pour stabiliser les situations de travail: droit du travail, protection sociale étendue, couverture des risques sociaux mise en place par l'Etat Providence. C'est par rapport à la structure de la société salariale, de sa crise ou de son effritement à partir du milieu des années soixante‐dix, que l'on peut qualifier la spécificité de la précarité d'aujourd'hui.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Castel, 2000. "The Roads to Disaffiliation: Insecure Work and Vulnerable Relationships," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(3), pages 519-535, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:24:y:2000:i:3:p:519-535
    DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.00262
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    Cited by:

    1. Martin J. Murray, 2009. "Fire and Ice: Unnatural Disasters and the Disposable Urban Poor in Post‐Apartheid Johannesburg," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(1), pages 165-192, March.
    2. Adam Mrozowicki & Vera Trappmann, 2021. "Precarity as a Biographical Problem? Young Workers Living with Precarity in Germany and Poland," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 35(2), pages 221-238, April.
    3. Udaya Wagle, 2014. "The Counting-Based Measurement of Multidimensional Poverty: The Focus on Economic Resources, Inner Capabilities, and Relational Resources in the United States," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 115(1), pages 223-240, January.
    4. Dina Vaiou & Rouli Lykogianni, 2006. "Women, Neighbourhoods and Everyday Life," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 43(4), pages 731-743, April.
    5. Thompson, Sanna & Jun, Jina & Bender, Kimberly & Ferguson, Kristin M. & Pollio, David E., 2010. "Estrangement factors associated with addiction to alcohol and drugs among homeless youth in three U.S. cities," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 418-427, November.
    6. Annie Irvine & Nikolas Rose, 2024. "How Does Precarious Employment Affect Mental Health? A Scoping Review and Thematic Synthesis of Qualitative Evidence from Western Economies," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 38(2), pages 418-441, April.
    7. Patricia Harrison & Helen Collins & Alexandra Bahor, 2022. "‘We Don’t Have the Same Opportunities as Others’: Shining Bourdieu’s Lens on UK Roma Migrants’ Precarious (Workers’) Habitus," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 36(2), pages 217-234, April.
    8. Hanne Vandermeerschen & Tine Regenmortel & Jeroen Scheerder, 2017. "‘There are Alternatives, but Your Social Life is Curtailed’: Poverty and Sports Participation from an Insider Perspective," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 133(1), pages 119-138, August.
    9. Helen Collins & Susan Barry & Piotr Dzuga, 2022. "‘Working While Feeling Awful Is Normal’: One Roma’s Experience of Presenteeism," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 36(2), pages 362-371, April.

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