Room 2175, Level 2, Haydon-Allen Building, The Australian National University

Professor Lisa Adkins, Professor of Sociology, School of Humanities and Social Science, The University of Newcastle

Abstract:  In this paper I am concerned with the juridicalization of the economy. I take as my starting point unruly and disobedient labour, and especially unemployed workers who have attempted to refuse the demand that they perform mandatory work activities in return for unemployment benefits. In attempting such refusals, some unemployed workers in the UK have turned to the law to test the legality of workfare schemes in which they are enrolled. This process has led to all manner of events including Emergency Acts of Parliament, appeals, counter-appeals and further legal challenges from those subject to compulsory work activities. While these events have received much attention, in this paper I suggest they must be situated in the context of design and role out of the making of a transnational market for the labour of unemployed. This is a market, moreover, which the law does not simply regulate or discipline: the law is materially entangled in its design and calibration. In this paper therefore I position the law not only as an instrument of government in the contemporary present but also as an economic actor. As such, I suggest that the sociological analysis of the law demands orientations which can account for this action.

Bio: Lisa Adkins is the BHP Billiton Chair of Sociology at the University of Newcastle, Australia and Academy of Finland Distinguished Professor (2015-2019). She is co-editor of Australian Feminist Studies. Her recent research focuses on the restructuring of labour and the economy-society relation in post-Fordist capitalism. Publications from this research have appeared in a number of journals including South Atlantic Quarterly, Feminist Theory and Australian Feminist Studies. She has also recently contributed to debates concerning the reconstruction of social science through the volumes What is the Empirical? (2009) and Measure and Value (2012) both co-edited with Celia Lury.