Precarity (Social Christianity)
Encyclopedia
- For a sociological view of labor conditions, see Precarious workPrecarious workPrecarious work is a term used to describe non-standard employment which is poorly paid, insecure, unprotected, and cannot support a household. In recent decades there has been a dramatic increase in precarious work due to such factors as: globalization, the shift from the manufacturing sector to...
- For the Eurocentric view see Precarity (Euromayday)Precarity (Euromayday)* For a sociological view of labor conditions, see Precarious work* For a social Christianity view see Precarity Precarity is a condition of existence without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare...
Precarity is a condition of existence
Existence
In common usage, existence is the world we are aware of through our senses, and that persists independently without them. In academic philosophy the word has a more specialized meaning, being contrasted with essence, which specifies different forms of existence as well as different identity...
without predictability
Predictability
Predictability is the degree to which a correct prediction or forecast of a system's state can be made either qualitatively or quantitatively.-Predictability and Causality:...
or security
Security
Security is the degree of protection against danger, damage, loss, and crime. Security as a form of protection are structures and processes that provide or improve security as a condition. The Institute for Security and Open Methodologies in the OSSTMM 3 defines security as "a form of protection...
, affecting material
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
or psychological
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
welfare. The term has been specifically applied to either intermittent work or, more generally, a confluence of intermittent work and precarious existence.
Catholic Origins
In its English usage, Precarity was first used by Léonce CrenierLéonce Crenier
Léonce Crenier was a Catholic monk who promoted the theological/political concept of Precarity.-Early years:Léonce Crenier was born in Ceton, a small village of the diocese of Séez, in Savoie, France, July 31, 1888...
, a Catholic monk
Monk
A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
who had previously been active as an anarcho-communist. In 1952 the term was used by Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day was an American journalist, social activist and devout Catholic convert; she advocated the Catholic economic theory of Distributism. She was also considered to be an anarchist, and did not hesitate to use the term...
, writing for the Catholic Worker Movement
Catholic Worker Movement
The Catholic Worker Movement is a collection of autonomous communities of Catholics and their associates founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in 1933. Its aim is to "live in accordance with the justice and charity of Jesus Christ." One of its guiding principles is hospitality towards those on...
:
- "True poverty is rare," a saintly priest writes to us from Martinique. "Nowadays communities are good, I am sure, but they are mistaken about poverty. They accept, admit on principle, poverty, but everything must be good and strong, buildings must be fireproof, Precarity is rejected everywhere, and precarity is an essential element of poverty. That has been forgotten. Here we want precarity in everything except the church. (...) Precarity enables us to help very much the poor. When a community is always building, and enlarging, and embellishing, which is good in itself, there is nothing left over for the poor. We have no right to do this as long as there are slums and breadlines somewhere..
San Precario
February 29 is the day of San Precario, the patron saint of precarious workers. He was created by the Chainworkers at the MilanMilan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
ese space Reload
Reload
Reload may refer to:* Repeated handloading of firearm cartridges, adding powder and primer to an empty metallic shell casing to create ammunition* Reloading scam...
where the 2004 EuroMayDay
EuroMayDay
EuroMayDay is a political day of action against precarity promoted by a network of feminist, anti-capitalist and migrant groups and collectives in mostly Western Europe. It takes place on the 1st of May each year, May Day, traditionally a celebration of solidarity among workers across the world...
was organised with others including the Critical Mass
Critical Mass
Critical Mass is a cycling event typically held on the last Friday of every month in over 300 cities around the world. The ride was originally founded in 1992 in San Francisco. The purpose of Critical Mass is not usually formalized beyond the direct action of meeting at a set location and time and...
group. The Milan Critical Mass already had its own patron saint, Santa Graziella (Graziella is the name of a bicycle firm).
San Precario was originally convceived as a male saint (Romano, 2004). ChainWorkers then did a hoax in 2005 during the Milano Fashion Week, by using a fictive stylist who was in fact an anagram for San Precario (the Saint's first public appearance was at a Sunday supermarket opening on Feb 29, 2004):
- A statue was carried in the streets, preceded by assorted clergy including a cardinal reciting prayers over a loudspeaker, and followed by pious people.
The groups claim that the name functions like a multiple user name or myth such as Luther Blissett
Luther Blissett (nom de plume)
Luther Blissett is a multiple-use name, an "open reputation" informally adopted and shared by hundreds of artists and activists all over Europe and the Americas since 1994...
and quote the Wu Ming
Wu Ming
Wu Ming is a pseudonym for a group of Italian authors formed in 2000 from a subset of the Luther Blissett community in Bologna.In their pre-Wu Ming days, the group wrote the novel Q ....
collective in giving theoretical coherence, although it is mostly seen as a detournement
Detournement
A détournement is a technique developed in the 1950s by the Letterist International, and consist in "turning expressions of the capitalist system against itself." Détournement was prominently used to set up subversive political pranks, an influential tactic called situationist prank that was...
of the Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
concept of patron saints.
See also
- Catholic social teachingCatholic social teachingCatholic social teaching is a body of doctrine developed by the Catholic Church on matters of poverty and wealth, economics, social organization and the role of the state...
- Christian anarchismChristian anarchismChristian anarchism is a movement in political theology that combines anarchism and Christianity. It is the belief that there is only one source of authority to which Christians are ultimately answerable, the authority of God as embodied in the teachings of Jesus...
- Prekariat - the social class, not necessarily poor or members of a particular underclass, disposed towards precarity. The prekariat is the post-Fordist analogue of the proletariatProletariatThe proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...
(in German)