Conveners: Urszula Chankowska, Katarzyna Gdesz, Julia Gorczowska, Piotr Kowalski, Rafał Marchwacki, Aniela Partyga (University of Warsaw)
The Polish media and political discourse are dominated by simplified yet contradictory images of ‘Generation Z’ – it is perceived either as lazy and undisciplined, or as bringing positive change to the labour market by demanding stable employment conditions and setting strict boundaries between private and professional life. Media and political discourse on work seem to lack important perspectives necessary for understanding the position of young people in contemporary society. This debate does not consider class background or structural changes such as deindustrialisation or the expansion of the service sector.
The concept of the precariat was intended to be the academic field’s response to the erasure of working people from media representation. The concept aimed to highlight the social similarities between manual and white-collar workers employed under precarious conditions.
However, this category overlooks fundamental class differences that manifest themselves in the material conditions of participation in the labour market. The homogenizing perspective treats the practices of combining studies with paid work, postponing parenthood, and middle-class career aspirations, as representative of the entire younger generation. Although the same work – e.g. service jobs in supermarkets or fast-food chains – is sometimes also performed by students, what remains important from the perspective of the class difference is the fact that the same work takes on a different meaning. Leisure activities also take on different meanings, from meeting friends to playing sports to creative pursuits. We propose to fill the gap in research on the working classes in Poland with the young generation of those who are not on the trajectory of upward social mobility.
To participate in the panel, we invite scholars interested in analysing the experiences of young people from popular classes families who did not pursue higher education and work in manual or unskilled service jobs. The reality of the labour market they face can be relatively diverse, encompassing stable and unstable conditions, guaranteeing relatively poor or good earnings, forcing them to engage in intense physical effort or remain in a fixed position for many hours. The experience that binds this group together is therefore not so much the working conditions as the reproduction of the position of previous generations in the class structure. We invite scholars to present empirical research discussing the specific nature of the experiences of young people from the working class, as well as to reflect on the structural changes affecting their lives and everyday reality. Below, we suggest potential topics:
- What generational changes can be observed in the attitudes within the working class? Is the category of working class still relevant in deindustrialised Poland?
- How does the habitus of young people who do not continue their education at university contrast with the habitus of precarious students? How do their experiences differ?
- What differences between young people from different class backgrounds can be observed in their approach to colleagues and superiors? Are young people from the working class willing to resist their employers? Or do they strive for autonomy and dream of living on their ‘own terms’? Do they identify with the category of a labourer? What are their attitudes towards political disputes? What do they think about the concept of class?
- How do they plan their future family life and parenthood? How can their current family ties be characterised? What is the relationship between gender and everyday experience? What do they do in their free time?
- What should be the researcher's strategy towards issues such as domination and the possibility of resistance to it? How can one think about emancipation and how to write about subordination? How broad is the scope of the concept of the popular classes and is this concept rooted in contemporary social practice? Are there better ways to conceptualise today's social structure?
