Between Work and Off-day – possibilities of ambiguity in social enterprises

Abstract

In a time where ‘work’ seems to be on everyone’s lips, the consequences of not having a job may be severe. Concurrently the economic recession has amplified processes of exclusion in the labor market, particularly among the most vulnerable citizens. Social enterprises, in particular work integration social enterprises (WISEs), have been proposed as possible solutions to this problem. Through two ethnographic fieldworks in such WISEs this article seeks to investigate how participants narrate and experience work in this specific type of en- terprise. In both cases, work was simultaneously talked about as being ‘real’ work conduct- ed in a ‘real’ enterprise where one had to ‘make an effort’ and referred to as ‘not be- ing real’ work and the WISE being a place where one could have an ‘off-day’ and re- lax if needed. Zooming in on everyday life in the two WISEs revealed a dilemma filled and contested landscape. The WISEs in question seemed to reproduce the ration- alities of today’s work society while at the same time challenge and expand these very same rationalities. Thus the article suggests that WISEs, conceptualized as being on the margin of the conventional labor market, produce new practices of work and new understandings as to what work may encompass. In reality however, these expanding practices proved to be fleeting especially when the economy is tightening. The article therefore concludes that these practices themselves exist under constant pressure from the very same recession that they seek to alleviate the consequences of.