Precarity – More than a Challenge of Social Security

The present book gathers edited contributions from a conference which had been held end of 2010 in Ankara, Turkey. This event brought together scientists and trade unionists from several EU- and non EU-countries, exploring one of the major, though frequently underestimated challenges of societal integrity. This continuing debate of the experts of the European S. U. P. I.-Network focussed in particular on the more fundamental issues of precarity. As much as precarity is a matter of socio-individual concern, having severe repercussions on the life of an increasing number of people, it is moreover a development that fundamentally challenges. It questions many of the values claimed by enlightenment and capitalist revolutions as universal, including solidarity, mutual support and equality – though they are formally still claimed as valid; and moreover these developments are part of structural changes that easily fissure the contemporary mode of production. Does this mean the end of society? Or could it be a take-off for another renaissance?