TY - JOUR
T1 - Transforming work
T2 - A critical literature review on degrowth, post-growth, postcapitalism and craft labor
AU - Vincent, Olga
AU - Brandellero, Amanda
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors
PY - 2023/12/10
Y1 - 2023/12/10
N2 - Many scholars have called for a profound change in capitalist growth-oriented provisioning systems and business models to help address the unique socio-ecological challenges of the 21st century. Reenvisaging how work is organised, constructed, and valued is an essential part of this change. Scholars of degrowth, post-growth, postcapitalist, and craft research have long discussed alternatives to capitalist work from different perspectives and levels of analysis. We believe that cross-fertilisation of ideas between these strands of literature can advance our imaginaries of the future of work and transition pathways towards the vision of dealienated labour. For this purpose, we bring these strands of literature into conversation by performing a critical literature review on work in postcapitalist, degrowth, post-growth, and craft scholarship. Overall, 121 articles were included in the analysis. We identify autonomy, dealienation, and value creation as common themes with complementary insights from the strands of literature. We also observe that macroeconomic policies suggested by degrowth, post-growth and postcapitalist scholars provide an institutional framework that can be compatible with the micropolitics of work, as documented by craft scholars. Lastly, craft scholars provide an empirically grounded analysis of what it means to engage in useful doing, whereas degrowth and postcapitalist literature mainly contains critical theoretical reflections on the decommodification of labour, recognition of reproductive labour and value creation. Degrowth, post-growth and postcapitalist literature can benefit from more empirical research investigating these issues in relation to the everyday realities of workers.
AB - Many scholars have called for a profound change in capitalist growth-oriented provisioning systems and business models to help address the unique socio-ecological challenges of the 21st century. Reenvisaging how work is organised, constructed, and valued is an essential part of this change. Scholars of degrowth, post-growth, postcapitalist, and craft research have long discussed alternatives to capitalist work from different perspectives and levels of analysis. We believe that cross-fertilisation of ideas between these strands of literature can advance our imaginaries of the future of work and transition pathways towards the vision of dealienated labour. For this purpose, we bring these strands of literature into conversation by performing a critical literature review on work in postcapitalist, degrowth, post-growth, and craft scholarship. Overall, 121 articles were included in the analysis. We identify autonomy, dealienation, and value creation as common themes with complementary insights from the strands of literature. We also observe that macroeconomic policies suggested by degrowth, post-growth and postcapitalist scholars provide an institutional framework that can be compatible with the micropolitics of work, as documented by craft scholars. Lastly, craft scholars provide an empirically grounded analysis of what it means to engage in useful doing, whereas degrowth and postcapitalist literature mainly contains critical theoretical reflections on the decommodification of labour, recognition of reproductive labour and value creation. Degrowth, post-growth and postcapitalist literature can benefit from more empirical research investigating these issues in relation to the everyday realities of workers.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85177617919&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.139640
DO - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.139640
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85177617919
SN - 0959-6526
VL - 430
JO - Journal of Cleaner Production
JF - Journal of Cleaner Production
M1 - 139640
ER -