Paper short abstract:

In this paper, based on ethnographic research carried in Turin, Italy, I wonder how can we conceptualize the agency of the unemployed avoiding the individualism typical of neoliberal thought? My response is that agency should not be thought apart from the economic structure of opportunity.

Paper long abstract:

How can we conceptualize the agency of the unemployed avoiding the individualism typical of neoliberal thought? In this paper I ponder on this question with regards to my ethnographic research on the experience of unemployed in Turin, Italy, carried on during the long local recession that followed the Global Crisis of 2008. My ethnography shows that the unemployed – besides their financial problems – suffer from being deemed responsible and blamed for their predicament, after an individualistic explanation of unemployment which is a central feature of the neoliberal ideology. Furthermore, the policies of activation for unemployed people are based on the same individualistic premise.

However, it is patent that unemployment is above all, at a local level, a consequence of the persistent crisis linked to deindustrialization and the economic transition to a post-Fordist economy, so that the agency of the unemployed is severely conditioned by the limited structure of opportunity which offers very few good jobs.

Unemployed are not passive subject, as it is proved by the tactics of subsistence that they develop to counter the lack of economic resources. Still, if we have to avoid echoing the sirens of neoliberal individualism (Carrier 2016, After the crisis) the concept of agency itself needs to be carefully managed. What even the ethnography demonstrate is that structure and agency can’t be separated, because the agency of the unemployed can be understood only in relation with the economic structure of opportunity.