University of Victoria

Omnibus Session: Economy, Labour Markets & Employment I

This session brings together presentations with a focus on the Economy, Labour Markets & Employment.

Chair: Patrizia Albanese, Ryerson University

Session Organizer: Patrizia Albanese, Ryerson University, palbanes@ryerson.ca

Certainty Creep: Trust, Market Dynamics, and Symbolic Violence Among Financial Planners

Patrick Parnaby, University of Guelph, pparnaby@uoguelph.ca

In Canada, certified financial planners self-identify as experts with the specialized knowledge and skills needed to secure clients’ financial futures. Acting in that capacity, one of the toughest challenges financial planners face is keeping price-sensitive clients invested in unstable economic markets even though their initial reaction is to panic and sell off their holdings. Not surprisingly, early in the professional relationship clients are taught that because markets are inherently uncertain and entirely unpredictable in the short term, one must stay focussed instead on the certainty of long term economic growth. This principle is taken entirely for granted in the financial planning industry – it is, in a sense, naturalized to such an extent that suggestions to the contrary are often dismissed outright. But if, as Bourdieu (1977) argues, power is present in even the most banal interactions and social contexts, then planners’ near-axiomatic characterization of market dynamics warrants critical investigation, especially given the extent to which people’s wellbeing hangs in the balance. On the basis of 48 interviews with planners, and 8 recorded meetings between planners and clients, this paper argues that by understanding the naturalization of market dynamics as a form of Bourdieusian (1992) “symbolic violence”, the extent to which planner/client relations bear the indelible markings of systems of power becomes clear. And while clients appear complicit in their own control, the industry leverages its symbolic capital to cultivate an important sense of trust which diverts radical critique while allowing key social systems to remain intact.

Saturday June 8, 2013 09:00 AM - 10:30 AM Building: Elliott Building, Room: E-061

Feminist Perspectives on Basic Income: De-Commodification, Gender Equality and Community Transformation

Angela Miles, University of Toronto, angela.miles@utoronto.ca

This paper will:

- present the context and content of the “Feminist Statement on Guaranteed Living Income” issued following a national workshop in Pictou, Nova Scotia, Sept. 2004;

- examine the visionary and practical contribution the Statement’s analysis offers to an understanding of basic income as an essential element of both immediate social reform and long term social transformation in human as well economic relationships in the economic North and South.

Saturday June 8, 2013 09:00 AM - 10:30 AM Building: Elliott Building, Room: E-061

Never the Same: Losing friends, losing money and losing meaning.

June Corman, Sociology, at Brock University, jcorman@brocku.ca

This paper addresses the organization of work and the social relations of work at in the John Deere Plant in Welland and the consequences for those employed at the plant after the closure. Evidence fo this paper is drawn from two rounds of interviews with women and men, who lost their jobs at this plant. The interviews were 18 months apart. The interviews are supplemented with interviews with the Union President, management and the Job Action Centre.

Saturday June 8, 2013 09:00 AM - 10:30 AM Building: Elliott Building, Room: E-061