Uncovering Labour in Information Revolutions, 1750-2000: Volume 11

by Aad Blok (Editor), Greg Downey (Editor)

Overview

Discussion of the current Information Revolution tends to focus on technological developments in information and communication and overlooks both the human labor involved in the development, maintenance and daily use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), and the consequences of implementing these ICTs. This volume corrects this imbalance by exploring the role, position and divisions of information and communication labor through periods of revolutionary technological change.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521543538
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	12/15/2003
Series:	International Review of Social History Supplements , #11
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	268
Product dimensions:	6.02(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.67(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction Aad Blok and Greg Downey; Hands and Minds: Clerical Work in the First 'Information Society' Eve Rosenhaft; India's First Virtual Community and the Telegraph General Strike of 1908 Deep Kanta Lahiri Choudhury; Perpetually Laborious: Computing Electric Power Transmission Before the Electronic Computer Aristotle Tympas; Breaking the Buffalo: The Transformation of Stevedoring Work in Durban between 1970 and 1990 Bernard Dubbeld; Compressing Time and Constraining Space: The Contradictory Effects of ICT and Containerisation on International Shipping Labour Helen Sampson and Bin Wu; Letting the 'Computer Boys' Take Over: Technology and the Politics of Organizational Transformation Nathan L. Ensmenger; 'Computers in the Wild': Guilds and Next Generation Unionism in the Information Revolution Chris Benner; Emerging Sources of Labor on the Internet: The Case of America Online Volunteers Hector Postigo; The Place of Labor in the History of Information Technology Revolutions Greg Downey.

Editorial Reviews

'What is fascinating in these accounts is the light they shed on how the identities which result are shaped by the interplay between coercion and resistance, initiative and inertia; how the employers' ad hoc demands for particular discrete skills and competencies are countered by workers' aspirations for coherently demarcated occupations which provide personal identity, development, and status; and how these in turn are shaped by specific histories and geographies … such discussions could not be more timely.' International Review of Social History

From the Publisher