Work as Conceptual Category
Gayatri Sahgal
RETHINKING WORK: GLOBAL HISTORICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES by Rana Behal Tulika Books, 2012, 182 pp., 400
April 2012, volume 36, No 4

Rethinking Work: Global, Historical and Sociological Perspectives, is a collection of essays which explores the theme of work as a separate conceptual category that exists apart from labour. In doing so the contributing authors provide a perspective on the factors that define the contours of the meaning of work and the reality of its experi-ence. In the chapter aptly titled ‘I Feel Like a Kid in Front of Them’ Mayer Ahuja explores how age differences condition specific forms of work organization in the context of the soft-ware industry. In investigating this dynamic he finds that the emergence of global value chains within the industry has not only led to a dis-integration of the value chain across the deve-loped and developing economies but has also been accompanied by specific characteriza-tion of the work force, which reflects a trans-national age gap. He argues that while age differences in some contexts can contribute towards the unequal division of labour, it is not necessarily so in all cases. The business models followed by companies also play a significant role in transforming age differences into inequalities in the division of work. The author however warns that overriding age differences can prove to be a fairly complex task even in companies which view such divisions as a challenge to be tackled with, as in the case of G-Pro.

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