'Deroutinization', 'Immediatization' and Practices of Resistance: Times and Rhythms Inequalities in Postmodern Capitalism. The Case of Shift Workers in Milan, Italy

In this research project I want to analyze the central theme of time in the postmodern age. Essentially what I want to examine are the reasons of unhappiness and happiness, in the context of postfordist “society of services”, based on mass consumption. The objects of this study are the workers, men and women, in the service industry and, at one side, the satisfaction demand from customers, for example in the context of the shop in which they are working, and, on the other side, the satisfaction demand from the workers' relatives and friends, in the familiar and friendship context. But workers are also themselves consumers: the problem of the immediate, instant, satisfaction of desires concerns the perception of social rhythms of all the classes in the Italian society. Time is a problem of power, and power is a problem of time: if you have or have not time to do something you want to do, and time to reason about the social reality you live in. Relationships need routines, time and cyclical rhythms to be created and recreated everyday on a long-term line, but in the postmodern age all the stakeholders want to be satisfied immediately. I think that there are two dichotomous processes: people, including workers, want everything, not only objects to buy and consume but also affections and feelings, immediately; and simultaneously they need time and tranquility, because human beings couldn't live without routines, which are necessaries to create social life itself. We can presume that people try to use their resilience and flexibility to engage this process of “deroutinization”, to live their life and search their happiness, in primis women, who are forced in their role of mothers and wives, even in our postmodern age, especially in the Italian catholic society. And so, the research questions are firstly (1) if and how do social actors perceive and can explain to themselves this phenomenon, and if and how do they rebuild new routine to face up to this process; and then (2) if and how especially women perceive and can explain to themselves this phenomenon, and how they rebuild new routines to face up to this process. Methodology: qualitative methods Step 1- participant observation and sociologic discourse analysis Step 2 - interviews and inquiries, focus groups. In Italy and above all in Milan there are many groups of workers that want to bring the problem of shift work, and especially holiday's and Sunday's work, to the Parliament: they raised thousands of signatures to request a national referendum. This is the paradigmatic example of the process of “deroutinization” and “immediatization” that I want to analyze, in the perspective of the instant satisfaction in the age of postmodern capitalism. The object of this study is linked to the theory of consumerism society and of the "society of services", with the ambition to be useful to get better the picture of the postmodern capitalist society, put into a perspective of connection among different areas of interest of Sociology: Time, Labour, Everyday life, and above all Gender Relations in the Labour Market and the Welfare State.