The ones that never knock: Career opportunities during the Covid-19 pandemic: Dr Jenny Rodriguez, University of Manchester

Event Date: 16 November 2022

Speaker: Dr Jenny Rodriguez

Time: 3.00-4.00pm (GMT)

Location: Hybrid - for registration details, see below

Dr Jenny Rodriguez visits University of Strathclyde to discuss Career opportunities during the Covid-19 pandemic

Strathclyde Business School's division of Work, Employment and Organisation is delighted to host Dr Jenny Rodriguez for a seminar on 'The ones that never knock: Career opportunities during the Covid-19 pandemic'.

In this paper, Jenny draws on ideas from necropolitics and necrocapitalism to explore narratives about career opportunities by frontline professionals in the health sector in Chile during the pandemic. Findings suggest a picture of what could be characterised as an overarching necrocapitalist career narrative, where the starting point of precariousness is normalised and unquestioned as a result of the historical position of the profession in the labour market and the features of employment. As a result, the professional practice of this group both responds and reproduces logics of commoditization of the occupation and its value. Against this backdrop, career opportunities are articulated from a perspective that sees the possibility of anything (a very precarious job) as the possibility of everything (a successful career). The paper argues for the positioning of ideas about career opportunities and success as part of the necropolitical framing of capitalist power and in doing so, it challenges the linearity of ideas about individual career ownership and empowerment prevalent in the careers literature.

This seminar is hybrid in-person/online. To register for the event, please email sbs-weo@strath.ac.uk

Published: 2 November 2022