Affective Labor and Post-Bureaucracy

As mentioned in the Introduction, I first directed my attention to the field of modern working life because I sensed that this area condensed some of the general issues of life in late modernity. In the many circulating work tales, ranging from depressive crises to pioneering exploits, I recognized a number of themes which seemed the signature of our time: the desire for uniqueness and the nostalgia for routine; the quest for freedom and the longing for authority, the pursuit of visibility and the dreams of quietude. All of these contradictory forces coexisted and seemed to strike at the heart of our present condition. I was attracted precisely by the intensity of the forces, and by their contradictory nature. It was this initial puzzlement that guided me as I entered my field. But it was more than mere puzzlement. It was also a sense of awe toward the existential precariousness at stake. I wished to understand the nature of this emotional intensity in a way which could capture both the moments of meaning and the moments of despair. In other words, I wished to find tools which could capture the simultaneity of contradictory forces in modern working life, rather than to diagnose them as a symptom of one or the other.