The disconnection turn: Three facets of disconnective work in post-digital capitalism. (December 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Fast, Karin
• Is Part Of: Convergence. Volume 27:Number 6(2021)
• Page Start: 1615
• Page End: 1630
• Publication Date: 2021-12
• Subjects: digital disconnection -- post-digital capitalism -- workification -- digital labour -- work -- disconnection turn -- post-digital housewife -- digital detox -- disconnective work -- post-digital workplace -- technology of work -- post-workification; Mass media -- Technological innovations -- Periodicals; Telecommunication -- Periodicals; Mass media and technology -- Periodicals; 621.3897
• DOI: 10.1177/13548565211033382
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1354-8565

Abstract

In post-digital capitalism, digital disconnection is not merely a "luxury" but also an obligation. Aiming to re-contextualize digital disconnection outside of digital detox resorts, social media, and elitist activism, this article asks how the ongoing disconnection turn affects how we (think about) work. With cues taken from digital disconnection studies and (digital) work/labour research, I inquire three facets of disconnective work. I elaborate, firstly, what disconnection might mean for work, as I scrutinize ideals pertaining to "deep" and "slow" work. Secondly, I unveil how disconnection may materialize at work, as I inspect "the post-digital workplace" and "disconnective technologies of work." Thirdly, using "The Post-Digital Housewife" as a rhetorical figure for grasping the daily, typically unpaid, work that the disconnection turn makes acute, I recognize disconnection as work. The article concludes by presenting four dialectics of disconnective work, which serve to remind us of the paradoxical role of disconnection in processes of empowerment and exploitation.