Old and New Perspectives on Work in the Age of Polycrisis, ISA WORLD CONGRESS, Melbourne, Australia, july 25-june 1stISA WORLD CONGRESS, Melbourne, Australia, july 25-june 1st

The reflection on working time and exploitation (also thanks to the digital technologies) is not new, but perhaps certain forms of resistance, objection and desertion are. These concern both young people who refuse to participate in a generationally punitive and increasingly greedy and exploitative labor market, and the new phenomenon of the so-called "great resignations", all to be analyzed and understood, which seems to originate precisely from the stop imposed by the pandemic, that brought many workers to reconsider their work-life conditions. The relationship between the pandemic as a moment of rupture must be considered in the light of a growing demand for flexibility of the labor supply that is probably in this case reworked in terms of reappropriation of spaces, life and autonomy. A sort of boomerang of flexibility that could prelude to an alternative to current model. There is a public debate on the “great resignations” as phenomenon, but still, it’s necessary to understand it and who are its protagonists. The hypothesis of a rejection of working conditions and therefore of life is certainly one of the possible, but there is also to be considered a possible attempt to subvert the order of values imposed with practices that express objection and desertion from the system. Contributions (Theoretical and empirical) will consider the public discourse around the phenomenon, different social groups (age, gender, ethnicity, class), search for a sustainable work-life balance, smart working, reshuffle and quiet quitters, urban areas abandonment, data available or not, public policies, trade union representation.