[Themaintainers] From Managerial Feudalism to the Revolt of the Caring Classes

[Andrew Russell]

I’ve been daydreaming about a distributed oral history/interview project, consisting of interviews with “essential” workers to document their experiences. One could imagine at least 3 categories of interview subjects: those deemed essential before COVID19; those who’ve been recategorized (like my friends at my school’s IT help desk and our local wine & liquor store); and those not deemed essential by the state, but appear so in the eyes of the researcher. Non wage domestic labor is one clear example of the third category...

Andy 



> On Mar 30, 2020, at 3:42 AM, Dorothy Howard <dhoward at ucsd.edu> wrote:
> 
> 
> I think the concept of "frontlines" workers (COVID-19 + evocation of wartime measures) and the legal designation of "essential services" is fraught but essentially has to do with the social processes of valuing infrastructural labor. In the context of free and open source software and other infrastructural labor that involves voluntary processes or volunteer work, maintenance workers doing essential things to keep infrastructure like software going are excluded from the legal protections and recognition of the designation of being "essential", yet are still less visible to different publics who are suddenly recognizing "essential labor" and care workers as underrecognized occupations or bringing them to the center of attention about where care and respect and risk should be allocated in society. When we evoke the term essential services as a way of recognizing often invisibilized labor, my question is who does this designation still exclude and how can resources(ing) follow recognition? 
> 
> With care, 
> 
> Dorothy
> 
> 
>> On Sun, Mar 29, 2020 at 11:31 PM Ishi Crew <mediaentropy at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I've seen this talk (must be alot of work to transcribe it; and i'm sort of writing something on this topic, and am aware of graeber's views )
>> 
>> In my area we have something we call the 'virus' (or the V (for victory)  I r U.S.   --- one for all   ).  
>> 
>> How many 'maintainers' are essential workers and how many are innessential?  I have seen some suggestions that some anthropologists, economists, fashion models, wine tasters, McDonald's hamburger cooks and cleaners, musicians and mathematicians and artists, and museum curators and securty guards, and web ad programmers,  are inessential.    Or perhaps they are the 'rare' essence of the universe.  
>> 
>>> On Sun, Mar 29, 2020 at 1:54 AM Su <su at generis.name> wrote:
>>> Hi, all. Long-time listener, blah blah. Lee et al., I'm @TopLeftBrick
>>> on Twitter *waves* We've had a little contact over the years, I've
>>> been lurking here since pretty much the beginning and uh, have a LOT
>>> of free time to catch up on lists lately because Reasons.
>>> 
>>> Anyway, in case anyone was interested or wanted an easier way to grab
>>> a quote I put up a transcript of this talk the other day at
>>> http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/managerial-feudalism-revolt-caring-classes/
>>> It's…kinda of the moment right now.
>>> 
>>> On Fri, Dec 27, 2019 at 10:51 PM Camille E Acey <connect at camilleacey.com> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > New David Graeber https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-11241-from_managerial_feudalism_to_the_revolt_of_the_caring_classes
>>> > --
>>> > Camille E. Acey
>>> > connect at camilleacey.com
>>> > New York, NY - USA (GMT -5)
>>> >
>>> > "Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare." - Audre Lorde_______________________________________________
>>> > Themaintainers mailing list
>>> > Themaintainers at lists.stevens.edu
>>> > https://lists.stevens.edu/mailman/listinfo/themaintainers
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Themaintainers mailing list
>>> Themaintainers at lists.stevens.edu
>>> https://lists.stevens.edu/mailman/listinfo/themaintainers
>> _______________________________________________
>> Themaintainers mailing list
>> Themaintainers at lists.stevens.edu
>> https://lists.stevens.edu/mailman/listinfo/themaintainers
> 
> 
> -- 
> Dorothy Rose Howard 
> PhD Student, Communication
> UC San Diego
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Themaintainers mailing list
> Themaintainers at lists.stevens.edu
> https://lists.stevens.edu/mailman/listinfo/themaintainers
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.stevens.edu/pipermail/themaintainers/attachments/20200330/30b578cf/attachment.html>