Urban Precarity: The Destructiveness of Neoliberalism and Possibilities for Transformation

As neoliberalism has torn apart the policies of social and collective stability integral to the visions of welfare states post-World War II, precarity has become central to the study of advanced capitalist societies. This contribution invokes literary explorations of urbanity to argue that the anthropological analysis of the “urban” is pivotal to the understanding of how contemporary precarity is made and experienced. It draws on my fieldwork with the French Gilets Jaunes movement. The study of the urban has a long history both outside Europe and the United States as well as within. By contrast, precarity has emerged as a key word in the historic centers of capital where states have abandoned aspirations for expanding wellbeing. The papers presented here explore the relevance of this concept to post-colonial countries where life, as many have pointed out, has always been precarious.