Embodied Workers in the New Economy

February 27-29, 2004

Maxwell School for Citizenship and Public Affairs

Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY

The "new economy" incorporates new groups of workers, embodied in multiple ways, while extending the organizational logic of the "disembodied worker" in ways that require workers to absorb increasing and quite different costs and risks.  Our conference brings together a group of scholars who have been researching the diverse employment situations of particular groups of employees who are variously situated in the so-called "new economy."  Our collective goal at the conference is to enhance each area of work by setting it in the larger context of economic restructuring and global economic change.  Drawing on the IE approach, we will attempt not only to document the changes, and their contradictory dynamics, but also to examine in some detail the institutional machinery putting them in place in various sites.  The goal is to provide maps of these institutional technologies, often in order to suggest points of intervention that could minimize troubles and challenge injustice, from the standpoints of people living everyday lives subject to these regimes.

Thanks to our sponsors:

• American Sociological Association's Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline.

• And at Syracuse University: Department of Sociology, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Social Science Program, Global Affairs Institute, Senate Committee on LGBT Concerns.

And a special thank you to Kristenne Robison for conference web design and research assistance, and to Jana Silvestro and Robin Goettel for administrative support.

To read Marjorie's Background Paper for the Conference, click here.

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