On the Cultural Meaning of Work in Postindustrial Societies
in Ethnologia Europaea
Author:
Johannes Moser
Johannes Moser
Johann Wolfgang Universität
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The paper discusses the question of the cultural meaning of work in postindustrial societies and pleads for a wider anthropological perspective on this topic. Based on a critique of postmodern discourses of our society it will be shown that work in our individualistic society still has a central and positive meaning although it underlies the typical ambivalence of modernity between liberty and discipline. Prejudices against the unemployed, just as the memories and experiences of workers in a mining community, show a positive attitude towards work. Even under unfavourable conditions people develop specific and creative ways to organize work that refer to more than just the necessity of subsistence.