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

[Cowan, Ruth S]

I’ll add another category to your list of “essential workers,” Andy, I category I find deeply problematic.  In the NY metro region—perhaps in the whole state of NY—construction workers have been deemed essential.  In the small town in which I live, this means that construction work is going on, without an apparent effort at social distancing, to renovate a local playground!  My friends who live in Manhattan tell me that construction work continues, unabated, on luxury rental towers.   “Essential” and ‘not-essential” categories are, apparently, subject to the pressure of lobbies.

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Ruth Schwartz Cowan. Ph.D.
Janice and Julian Bers Professor, Emerita
History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania
------------------------------------
Author (with Matthew H. Hersch) of A Social History of American Technology, 2nd edition (Oxford University Press, 2017)
https://global.oup.com/ushe/search?q=a+social+history+of+american+technology&cc=&lang=en

From: themaintainers-bounces at lists.stevens.edu <themaintainers-bounces at lists.stevens.edu> On Behalf Of Andrew Russell
Sent: Monday, March 30, 2020 7:23 AM
To: Dorothy Howard <dhoward at ucsd.edu>
Cc: themaintainers <themaintainers at lists.stevens.edu>
Subject: Re: [Themaintainers] From Managerial Feudalism to the Revolt of the Caring Classes

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<mailto: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<mailto: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<mailto: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<mailto: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<mailto: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<mailto:Themaintainers at lists.stevens.edu>
> https://lists.stevens.edu/mailman/listinfo/themaintainers
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--
Dorothy Rose Howard
PhD Student, Communication
UC San Diego

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