Serving up harm: Systemic Violence, Transitions to Adulthood and the Service Economy

This chapter extends the zemiological gaze into contemporary labour markets to contemplate harm within the service economy. Data drawn from an ethnographic study of service work complements an ultra-realist framework and explores connections between the depth structures of neoliberal global capital, transformed working environments and subjectivity. Ultra-realism provides an explanatory frame for absences as well as presences; the absence of stability, protection and ethical obligation to the other characterise occupations organised around targets, productivity and affective labour. Under these conditions, systemic and subjective harms are visible, raising questions about both the normal functioning of a sector essential to the service of consumer capitalism and the working experiences of young people negotiating a path towards adulthood whilst engaged in stressful, insecure and low-paid work.