Conceptualising subjectivity, labour and value within self-employed labour

Self-employed work has become more prominent in recent years, with more workers contracting, freelancing and platform-working. This has led to challenges on a policy and legislative level, managerial challenges, and widely held concerns over the effects of precariousness on such workers.

Existing research broadly falls into two orientations. One approach looks at how self-employed professionals orient towards extrinsic elements of work, such as employment opportunities, financial outcomes, professional networks and professional recognition. A second approach looks at the experience of self-employed workers with a focus on intrinsic elements of work, highlighting how identities may develop in relation to the process and outcomes of one’s work activity.

Drawing on concepts from psychoanalysis and Marxist theory, we propose a conceptualisation of subjectivity in self-employed work that combines these orientations. We argue that these intrinsic and extrinsic elements become embodied by self-employed workers through the production of different forms of value: workers need to represent the commodity value of their services in the marketplace, but also construct a notion of value in their work closely tied to their identity as workers.

These forms of value are produced through abstract and concrete labour respectively. This abstract labour comprises the assembling of market signifiers, and concrete labour consists of constructing meaning in and identification with work-based ideals. This paper contributes to the literature on non-standard ways of working, subjectivity and identity, and psychoanalytically-inspired research in work and organisation.