Body Contracts. The enthusiasm economy and the censoring of exhaustion
Body Contracts. The enthusiasm economy and the censoring of exhaustion

Summary/Abstract: The text is a partial summary of the performative project Umowy o ciało (Body Contracts), which the authors carried out as part of a workshop at theFaculty of Polish Studies of the Jagiellonian University. The aim of the projectwas to create 'honest contracts' that would provide realistic representationsof exploitation in the precarious and project-based labor market. Thedocuments were created on the basis of sociological, autoethnographic andart-based research by five working groups focusing on the situation ofdancers, servers, nightclub promoters, cultural animators and volunteers inthe cultural industry. In the text we present the results of the project,highlighting two important observations from our research. The first relates tothe affective dimension of the activities studied, requiring workers to beintensely involved in relationships with other people, to continuously performwork readiness and to show emotional attachment to their work. The secondobservation concerns yet another pressure accompanying these demands –namely, to hide signs of physical and mental fatigue. In our view, the latterexpectation is nowadays amounting to a systemic form of affectivecensorship, founded primarily on cultural perceptions and mores, but alsosanctioned by social dispositifs such as civil law.

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