Remote Work and Social Change: An Anthropological Approach

Introduction

Remote work has become normalized as an important aspect of people’s lives across different professions, social classes, and geographic regions. In the knowledge economy, work is now less tied to specific physical locations and is re-spatialized in new hybrid ways.

Research Questions

But what are the consequences of remote work and always-on connectivity on people's everyday lives? How do these affect social institutions such as the home, family, household, and friendship, and broader processes of social change?

Project Overview

ReWorkChange aims to answer these questions by delivering a comparative ethnographic study of the societal consequences of remote work, defined as work tasks performed outside the traditional office setting.

Existing Research Limitations

Most research on remote work has been carried out in the fields of management and organizational studies and is limited to case studies in the global north. In contrast, ReWorkChange’s scope is far more comprehensive and wide-ranging.

Methodology

The project will build on practice theories to conduct a comparative study of the consequences of remote work on people’s everyday lives in six countries with an advanced knowledge economy:

1. China
2. India
3. Italy
4. Mexico
5. The Netherlands
6. Turkey

It will provide rich and compelling ethnographic evidence of everyday practices to generate theories of social institutions and a broader theory of remote work and social change.

Principal Investigator's Expertise

The PI has extensively explored family life, kinship, love, romances, gendered relations, home, and homeland as mediated practices in Lebanon, Turkey, Italy, and the Netherlands. Additionally, she has previously worked towards the conceptualization of digital media and social change.

Conclusion

She is, hence, the ideal candidate to achieve the ambitious goal of exploring and theorizing the impact and implications global processes of digitalization and transformations of work have on cultures and societies worldwide.