The Hope and Failure of Manufacturing Workers and Micro-Entrepreneurs
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Beyond the “proper job” in Dayton, Ohio An exploration of precarity, infrastructure and affect in the American city Håvard Lunde Helgesen Master’s Thesis Department of Social Anthropology UNIVERSITY OF OSLO May 2019 Copyright Håvard Lunde Helgesen 2019 Beyond the “proper job” in Dayton, Ohio: An exploration of precarity, infrastructure and affect in the American city Håvard Lunde Helgesen http://www.duo.uio.no/ Trykk: Reprosentralen, Universitetet i Oslo 2 Abstract This thesis is based on approximately five and a half months of fieldwork conducted in the spring of 2018 in Dayton, Ohio, and contributes to the study of precarity in the global North among mostly young men with working- and middle-class backgrounds. Being part of the American Rust Belt, Dayton has experienced economic hardship and de-industrialization following the recessions of 1980 and 2008 and has been heavily affected by the ongoing opioid epidemic. More recently, an old GM factory was reopened in the area by Chinese investments that questions the narrative of de-industrialization in the region. I engaged in participant observation in a boxing gym, a church, and by living with people via Airbnb. Through scrutinizing the precarity of (1) mobility amidst crumbling infrastructure, (2) the precarity of factory life at a Chinese automotive glass plant, and (3) the precarity of the gig-economy, I shed light on how these various precarities are intertwined and affect the urban existence of my interlocutors. Furthermore, this thesis shed light on life beyond the “proper job” and the anxiety in its wake, in conjuncture with specific historical and cultural trajectories. 3 4 Acknowledgements The process of writing this thesis has been anything other than an individual project. First and foremost, I am grateful to all the people I got to know in Dayton, and those who became my interlocutors. You let me become part of their lives, either at the boxing gym, at church, or through sharing your homes with me. A special thanks to Tal, Martin and Judith who helped me through trying times during fieldwork. Fieldwork is one of the most challenging undertakings of my life, but also one of the most rewarding. Being able to build relationships with people in a very different place, learning how it is to live in contemporary America, and studying in a relatively “small place and exploring large issues”, all in the context of my master thesis has truly been an amazing experience. I would not have managed this without the external support of friends and family. I would like to thank my supervisor, Elisabeth Schober, for guidance, critical feedback and for invaluable support. Working with you have been both inspiring and motivating. Lastly, I want to thank my co-student and all those who have read my ongoing work and given me valuable feedback. A special thanks to Niklas, Daniel, Karen, Martin and Adam. 5 6 Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................. 5 Contents .................................................................................................................................................. 7 Chapter 1: Introduction........................................................................................................................ 10 “Dayton: A place called home” ....................................................................................................... 13 Conceptual framework ..................................................................................................................... 15 Precarity as an ontological and globally shared condition. ....................................................... 17 Entrepreneurs and the neoliberal subject under post-Fordism................................................ 18 Infrastructure and industrial ruins .............................................................................................. 20 Affect theory and a note on the political climate ...................................................................... 21 Structure of the thesis ...................................................................................................................... 22 Chapter 2: Methodological reflections and ethics .............................................................................. 24 Producing data .................................................................................................................................. 24 The boxing gym: punching my informants ................................................................................ 25 The church: healing with informants ......................................................................................... 27 The car: driving my informants .................................................................................................. 28 Airbnb: living with informants .................................................................................................... 28 Doing fieldwork in urban America ............................................................................................. 29 A fieldwork experience .................................................................................................................... 30 Ethical concerns ............................................................................................................................... 32 Race and extraction in contemporary United States ................................................................. 32 Emotions in the field ................................................................................................................... 35 Chapter 3: Infrastructure of (im)mobility ........................................................................................... 37 A portrait of Dayton through mobility ........................................................................................... 39 Migration, car-culture, and public infrastructure ....................................................................... 40 The junction between I-70 and I-75 ............................................................................................... 43 Stories of mobility ............................................................................................................................ 45 The past in the present at the downtown boxing gym ............................................................. 46 Retreat of the public in Dayton ....................................................................................................... 48 Chapter 4: Moraine Assembly and (a conflicted) modernity............................................................. 50 Landscape of modernity .................................................................................................................. 51 7 The boom at Moraine Assembly ................................................................................................ 52 The last truck standing (and industrial ruins) ............................................................................ 54 Fuyao Glass America Inc. ........................................................................................................... 57 Contradictions in the continued story of America ........................................................................ 60 Chapter 5: Manufacturing work and cultures of flexibility ................................................................ 62 Frictions and accidents at Fuyao ..................................................................................................... 63 Experiences of labour at the factory floor ................................................................................. 65 A new generation of manufacturing workers ................................................................................. 67 “We are a dying breed” ................................................................................................................ 69 The case of Calvin ........................................................................................................................ 70 The precarity of factory work .......................................................................................................... 70 Chapter 6: Hope and failures of the American entrepreneurs .......................................................... 73 Platform labour as an economic opportunity ................................................................................ 75 The rise of the gig-economy ....................................................................................................... 78 Barry and the aspirations of a temporary worker ...................................................................... 78 Adrian and his recipe for success ............................................................................................... 80 The precarity of the gig-economy in the “Left-behind America” ................................................ 82 Airbnb as ‘intimate economy’ ..................................................................................................... 84 Post-Fordist affect and the fabled flapping of wings. ............................................................... 86 Platform labour, race, and