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The Promise of Technology and the Precarious Lives: Disabled People’s Practices of Internet Work
LIN Zhongxuan, YANG Liu
Chinese Journal of Journalism & Communication ›› 2021, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (8) : 105-123.
PDF(1488 KB)
PDF(1488 KB)
The Promise of Technology and the Precarious Lives: Disabled People’s Practices of Internet Work
The relationship between information and communication technologies (ICTs) like the Internet and the precarious conditions of disabled people is an important research issue with practical concerns and theoretical implications in the intersection of Internet research and disability studies. Situated in China’s specific context, therefore, this study focuses on disabled people’s local practices of Internet work, to explore the research question that how to examine the relationship between the promise of technology and the precarious conditions of disabled people. Based on field observations for more than three years and in-depth interviews with nearly one hundred disabled workers, this study demonstrates not only the promise of technology of the Internet to disabled people, but also the precarious conditions of disabled people despite the technological empowerment. Specifically, the research findings suggest that we need to understand the special meaning of technological promises to Chinese disabled people from both the material perspective of having a job and making money and the meaning perspective of value and relationship. We also need to go beyond the common problems of precarity to understand disabled people’s special life experience and subjectivity formation from the spiritual perspective of emotional pressure and suffering subject, thus finally understanding ourselves and our time.
information and communication technology / precarity / state governing / disability / Internet
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The growth of precarious work since the 1970s has emerged as a core contemporary concern within politics, in the media, and among researchers. Uncertain and unpredictable work contrasts with the relative security that characterized the three decades following World War II. Precarious work constitutes a global challenge that has a wide range of consequences cutting across many areas of concern to sociologists. Hence, it is increasingly important to understand the new workplace arrangements that generate precarious work and worker insecurity. A focus on employment relations forms the foundation of theories of the institutions and structures that generate precarious work and the cultural and individual factors that influence people's responses to uncertainty. Sociologists are well-positioned to explain, offer insight, and provide input into public policy about such changes and the state of contemporary employment relations.
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Although the field of disability studies has examined disability across many contexts, the experience of library workers remains largely unexamined. Library literature tends to focus on the experiences of library users, rather than address the structural inequities in the profession itself. In the United States, current conversations within higher education and academic librarianship around resilience and professionalism create additional barriers to inclusion and exclude the lived experiences of those with disabilities. Additionally, existing processes designed to address disability treat its existence as a problem in need of a solution, and in doing so, further contribute to the workplace precarity experienced by library workers. Instead of maintaining existing systemic barriers and perpetuating an ableist professional ideal that places responsibility on the individual to be resilient, libraries and library workers need to redefine professionalism, minimize the stigma associated with any type of disability, and reduce precarity for disabled library employees. Only then can libraries and library workers focus on equity and inclusion for all.
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This article investigates how differences in social ties lead to differences in the social use of information and communication technology (ICT) and vice versa. The article draws on a qualitative study in the field of disability studies. Through this study of a marginalized subgroup of youth, the article advances insight into the permeability of the real and the virtual and extends the notion of established concepts of social ties and digital differentiation. The youth in the current study are 23 disabled Norwegians aged 15—20 years. The analysis is based on the principles of grounded theory and is characterized by a constant content comparative process. The outcome of this analysis shows how social ties of a marginalized subgroup of young people hold different characteristics than established notions anticipate, how these characteristics are vital in youths' interaction in offline and online life and how this interaction implies a mixed reality.
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