The strike has become social

Paths of precarious mobilization in Italy

Abstract

The article aims first of all to retrace the evolution of some paths of social mobilization around precariousness in Italy. The basic assumption is that such condition cannot be reduced to a sociological or economic category, but rather constitutes a ground for trade union organisation and political claims. I will articulate this analysis into two historically distinct moments on the basis of the ways in which precariousness has been described and opposed. Compared to a first moment in which the rise and narration of new working subjects took the centre of the stage, it seems possible to identify a second kind of mobilisations in which – while maintaining an alternation between specific disputes and general movements – the issue of precariousness spilled over and involved bio-political aspects as social reproduction and self-determination. Therefore, the forms of protest are also transformed: in the final part of the article I will try to clarify the main features of the social strike experiments that have occurred in Italy in recent years.