Evolving Work

Employing Self and Community

The idea of Self and the authenticity of particular identities have been rapidly dissolving in the acids of post-modern globalizing capitalism. The hegemony of patterns of work, wage-labor and the operation of labor markets in the American West (and European North) has ridden rough-shod over distinctive ways of enabling communities to flourish in many parts of the Southern and Eastern worlds (Global South). But, this is not inevitable. Indeed, as this book indicates, there are many practical examples across the globe – that connect with some of the most significant theoretical challenges to the operation of de-humanizing work – which reveal that a profound reversal is taking place. As such, the core theme of this book is to show that a movement is occurring whereby self-employment can be transformed into communal work that employs the Self in ways that release the authentic vocations of people, individually and collectively.