The meaning of work - Some arguments for the importance of culture within formulations of work in Europe

This paper is concerned with examining the meaning of different forms of wo rk found within the EU. Despite the increasing acknowledgement of the impor tance of the diversity of work forms within Europe, both within the Commiss ion and the European academic literature, it is argued that existing formul ations are highly problematic. Existing research, both academic and policy- related, is shown to be characterized by a bewildering terminology, which i s often used interchangeably, and which works to reinscribe existing lines of power within the EU. Moreover, this work is shown to be theoretically pr oblematic. The centrality of distinct measurable categories to representati ons of the diversity of contemporary work within the EU is argued to be a w ay of thinking which constructs difference in terms of statistical differen ces, which encourages homogenizing and oppositional representations of Nort h and South, and which also facilitates thinking as the same that which may be very different, Correspondingly, we argue for an alternative analysis o f the diversity of work forms, one which is grounded in the different meani ngs these forms assume in different cultural contexts. Taking three categor ies of 'atypical' work (part-time, self-employed and undeclared) in three E U member states (Greece, Denmark and the UK), the paper proceeds by demonst rating how categories which are constructed as same/different statistically are rather more complicated when considered in terms of the meanings inves ted in them. The categories of work are argued to be contextually and cultu rally embedded; they are inscribed with and reconstituted through culturall y specific sets of meanings in each of the three member states under consid eration. We conclude the paper by reflecting on the possibilities opened up by this kind of analysis, its implications regarding debates over European labour markets, and its positioning with respect to debates over the relat ionship between the cultural and the economic.