Political Economy, Work and Working Lives

Members: Laurence Cox, Tony Cunningham, Aphra Kerr, Peter Murray, Mary Murphy, Aileen O’Carroll, Seán Ó Riain

Co-ordinators: Seán Ó Riain, Mary Murphy

Aims of the Cluster:

The primary aim of this research cluster is to explore the relationship between political economy, work and working lives.

While the members of the research cluster approach the subject matter from a wide range of theoretical perspectives, we are united by our critical questioning of some of the dominant assumptions of neoclassical economics, and in particular the conceptualisation of a privileged and distinct sphere of social life termed “the economy”, in which the social value of the drive for unlimited economic growth is regarded as axiomatic.

Members of the research cluster are especially interested in exploring the impact of orthodox economics and the business of economy on work and working lives, not only so as to explain why in market-engulfed societies work is widely regarded as unmitigated necessity and a source of unfreedom, but also to encourage creative thinking about the means by which socio-economic structures might be transformed in order to facilitate pleasure and fulfilment in everyday labour.