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Inside the UK’s First Open-Access, Pay-As-You-Go Factory
Entrepreneurs Alisha Fredriksson and Roujia Wen spent months in 2022 scouring London for the right space to develop a prototype. Their big idea — to capture carbon emissions from cargo ships by trapping the gas amongst calcium oxide pebbles, through a system fitted on board — required a big, well-equipped space.
The options their search yielded were less than appealing. Large warehouses that had the high ceilings Fredriksson and Wen needed to build their venture, Seabound, were typically empty, with tenants needing to fully equip it themselves with the right machinery, plus the electricity to power it. They tended to be in industrial zones with only the likes of auto shops or dark kitchens for neighbors, and they usually required signing a five-year lease.
Seabound co-founders Alisha Fredriksson and Roujia Wen. Courtesy of Seabound
“As a six-month-old startup at the time, it was a scary proposition,” Fredriksson recalls.
Then Seabound found BLOQS, a 32,000-square-foot converted warehouse in the north London suburb of Enfield, fully kitted out with £1.3 million (around $1.7 million) worth of light industrial equipment for all kinds of manufacturing, including wood processing and metal fabrication, laser cutting and engraving, 3D printing, sewing machines, spray painting and more. If that didn’t already make the case for moving in, the flexible membership structure then quickly sealed the deal for Fredriksson and Wen.
The initial sign-up is free, with members simply paying a daily rate for the machinery they need to use, as well as for flexible office and storage space if they need it. Raw materials are available to purchase too, price-matched with local suppliers. And if members need to learn to use a particular piece of equipment, they can pay for training. An added bonus is the on-site restaurant, where an award-winning chef serves a seasonable and affordable Mediterranean menu. Yet the biggest draw for the Seabound team was the community of 1,000 other like-minded members.
Credit: Claudia Agati
“We wanted people to not just make whatever it is that they needed to, but we wanted to provide a facility where somebody was able to do what it is that the world needs,” says BLOQS cofounder Al Parra.
“It’s a fun place to go to work every day. We have a whole ecosystem of people that we’re a part of. Whereas if we were in our own warehouse on some industrial site, I don’t think we would have friends there — it would be more lonely,” says Fredriksson.
The expertise available at BLOQS has also allowed Seabound to tap into support on an as-needed basis. “We’ve actually also been able to keep our team very lean, because we’ve been able to occasionally work with people at BLOQS as a kind of ‘surge support,’” Fredriksson says. “For instance, there are technicians at BLOQS that have helped us, and there are electricians who are members that we’ve been able to contract with. So we have flexibility in terms of space and resourcing.”
The Seabound co-founders tested their prototype on board an 800-foot commercial container ship in late 2023. Courtesy of Seabound
Seabound was able to leverage everything on offer at BLOQS to test its carbon capture technology, with the team spending two months in late 2023 on board an 800-foot commercial container ship. The Seabound prototype successfully captured around one metric ton of CO2 per day, meaning the team, now back on dry land at BLOQS, can move into their second phase of research, development and testing, aiming to deploy their next system onto a ship in 2025.
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BLOQS co-founder Al Parra feels Seabound is one of the best examples of why he and his partners set up the space, which he describes as having “its own dynamism,” to drive innovation. “What this women-led climate tech engineering group is doing is incredible,” says Parra. “They started at BLOQS because they couldn’t take on the risk of their own premises. That very often is the case, that people come to us because they have a physical need of something that we provide, but then they stay because of the community. They’re in this confluence and mix of abilities, skills and knowledge. If you don’t know how to do something, you can be damn sure you’re one handshake away from somebody who does.”
As the UK’s largest open-access professional maker space — and the country’s first pay-as-you-go space of its kind — BLOQS has created 380 full-time jobs and has turned over a collective £15 million a year (around $19.1 million) since it launched in 2012. (It was then in a different location and moved to Enfield in 2022.)
Al Parra is BLOQS’ co-founder and director. Courtesy of BLOQS
As an open-access maker space in London, BLOQS isn’t alone. Thirty-eight maker spaces in the UK capital are listed on the Open Workshop Network, while 3D printing support organization CREATE Education lists community-centric spaces across the country on its site. Discipline-specific workshops also exist for professionals. But where BLOQS is unique, argues Parra, is that it’s the only cross-discipline site out of which someone could run a business.
“We wanted people to not just make whatever it is that they needed to, but we wanted to provide a facility where somebody was able to do what it is that the world needs,” says Parra.
Parra has observed that BLOQS members are able to leapfrog the initial set-up period of building up manufacturing contacts, which can take up to 10 years.
“We simplify access to things which are really expensive. If you don’t come from a privileged background, it’s difficult to get together that money. At BLOQS, you can walk straight in, from something like a building site, from a course or degree, or you can transition from another career, and we’ve got all of the resources,” says Parra.
“By making all of the technology that we’ve got available and affordable, we are diminishing the barriers between that and the creative mind.”
The DEMAND team at work. Courtesy of DEMAND
Some entrepreneurs see BLOQS as a testing ground for new ideas and stepping stone to a more permanent, private premises, while others see fit to call it their home for the foreseeable. Seabound’s future, for example, looks promising enough that Fredriksson is already forecasting a need for a larger separate space to accommodate dedicated facilities as well as manufacturing partners, although research and development, she thinks, could still be done at BLOQS.
The charity DEMAND, meanwhile, which creates assistive products for people with disabilities, has made its journey to BLOQS in reverse. After having spent the previous 20 years operating out of its own factory just north of London, the team migrated to BLOQS in 2022 after deciding its impact could be greater working in a shared space. Spending time and money on building and machine maintenance was holding the organization back, and with no other similar outfit nearby, the team felt isolated.
“The combination of flexible space and industrial-grade machinery has had a lot of impact on our speed and efficiency. And having access to the community makes it feel like we’re in a much bigger organization — we can lean on, and be inspired by, other people,” says Lynnette Smith, DEMAND’s head of creative.
DEMAND’s push-along “big car” is designed for children with balance issues who are unable to ride a bicycle. Courtesy of DEMAND
“Being here has definitely helped us maximize the impact of each thing we design. We were very skilled at making one of something for a specific individual. While that’s still the purpose of DEMAND, to make something for an individual need, we’ve now got the machinery that helps us make much more repeatable things.”
DEMAND products refined at BLOQS include a ramp for boccia, a Paralympic sport in which athletes use the ramp to propel their ball to get as close to the target ball as possible, as well as a “big car,” a push-along car designed for children with balance issues who are unable to ride a bicycle. BLOQS’ machinery has reduced human error, and accelerated the production process, says Smith. The technology at BLOQS has also streamlined the production of an eye-led communication aid, which was originally designed for one user, Mark, who DEMAND has since collaborated with to enable it to be reproduced for others.
Growing the charity in this way is one of Smith’s key goals, as is collaborating more closely with users like Mark.
Courtesy of DEMAND
“Having access to the community makes it feel like we’re in a much bigger organization — we can lean on, and be inspired by, other people,” says Lynnette Smith, DEMAND head of creative.
“We would love to keep working with BLOQS to make sure that accessibility happens, potentially also in new places that BLOQS open as a partnership — that’s something we’d love to see the impact of,” says Smith.
Expansion is definitely in the cards, according to Parra, with the BLOQS team assessing the feasibility of a second site in either South London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester or Glasgow, to open in 2025. Beyond the UK, Parra sees global demand for spaces like BLOQS. Similar models are already emerging, like South Africa’s Made In Workshop, Ireland’s Benchspace and Artisans Asylum in the US, all offering flexible, affordable models with a range of machinery.
Cofounder Alan Parra sees BLOQS as a model that could be replicated in other cities. Courtesy of BLOQS
Parra envisions real potential in developing countries, where microfinance schemes have become common in helping small-scale entrepreneurs build businesses and a livelihood.
“The developing world, where everybody’s one or two generations away from a village, understands this concept of sharing resources so intrinsically, that we’re getting interest from South Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe [to open another BLOQS],” says Parra.
“We’re offering a model for how we can make the things that we need, in a way that is sustainable.”
The post Inside the UK’s First Open-Access, Pay-As-You-Go Factory appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.
How Schools in Germany Are Preparing Students for Flexible Futures
This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet focused on education.
Neriman Raim, a 16-year-old student in Cologne, Germany, thought that after finishing school she’d want to work in an office.
But two years ago, she did a two-week internship in an architect’s bureau, and it was tedious. Later, a placement working with kindergarteners led her to consider a career as a teacher — but not of kids this young. The next school year, she spent three weeks supervising older children as they did their homework.
Neriman now plans to become an educator working with grade-school children. After finishing school this summer, she’ll participate in a year-long placement to confirm that teaching is the right career for her before going to a technical college. Her internships offered a glimpse of what working life could look like, she said: “I could see what a day is like with kids.”
Neriman Raim, 16, thought she wanted to work in an office but changed her mind when a work placement at an architect’s bureau proved tedious. Credit: Patricia Kühfuss for The Hechinger Report
Neriman is taking part in Kein Abschluss ohne Anschluss (KAoA) — or “no graduation without connection” — a program that has been rolled out across the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia to help students better plan for their futures. Young people get support with resumes and job applications; in ninth grade, they participate in short internships with local businesses and have the option of doing a year-long, one-day-a week work placements in grade 10.
“You don’t learn about a job in school,” said Sonja Gryzik, who teaches English, math and career orientation at the school Neriman attends, Ursula Kuhr Schule. “You have to experience it.”
Germany and other Western European countries have long directed students into career paths at earlier ages than in the US, often placing kids onto university tracks or vocational education starting at age 10. Students in Germany can embark on apprenticeships directly after finishing general education at age 16 in grade 10, attending vocational schools that offer theoretical study, alongside practical training at a company. College-bound kids stay in school for three more years, ending with an entry exam for university.
Small class sizes at Ursula Kuhr Schule allow teachers to offer guidance and support. Credit: Patricia Kühfuss for The Hechinger Report
The apprenticeship system, which is credited with keeping youth unemployment low, has drawn strong interest in the US amid growing disenchantment with university education. Youth apprenticeships have begun to pop up in several US states, and career exposure programs are expanding. “Many of the best jobs our country has to offer don’t require a college education,” wrote workforce training advocate Ryan Craig in his recent book “Apprentice Nation: How the ‘Earn and Learn’ Alternative to Higher Education Will Create a Stronger and Fairer America.”
But in Germany, the hundreds-year-old vocational system has faced headwinds. There is longstanding criticism that low-income students and those from immigrant backgrounds are channeled into vocational fields and away from more academic ones. More recently, despite the high demand for workers in the trades, students and their parents are increasingly hesitant about vocational education. Germany’s labor market has become digitized, and young people are keeping their options open before settling on a career path. Meanwhile, the pandemic had an outsized impact on vocational training, forcing many programs to close for long periods. And recent immigrants may be unaware of voc-ed’s high standing.
All this has led more students to choose to attend university. Yet many drop out: According to recent data, up to 28 percent of students fail to complete a degree. The figure for students in humanities and natural sciences is even higher, up to 50 percent.
Students can test their horticultural skills in the school’s garden. Credit: Patricia Kühfuss for The Hechinger Report
This high failure rate, coupled with labor market needs, has led policymakers to tweak traditional vocational models to make them more flexible. Students in the academic track increasingly have access to both apprenticeships and university, and some students who complete vocational qualifications can still go on to attend a university, where options for combining practical experience with academic studies are growing.
The program Neriman participates in, KAoA, is part of a wave of efforts to engage all students, not just those bound for vocational programs, in workforce preparation. All ninth and 10th grade students in North Rhine-Westphalia must do a three-week-long practical internship. Those on a vocational track begin apprenticeships after completing 10th grade, while students hoping to go to university attend academic high school for three additional years. The program encourages students from all backgrounds to think about their futures in concrete terms, said Bernhard Meyer, a teacher at Ursula Kuhr who coordinates KAoA in 11 towns across the Northwestern region.
“We have every type of possibility,” Meyer said. “And there’s not only apprenticeship or university, there are some studies in between.”
At Ursula Kuhr Schule, students in the school’s woodworking lab build birdhouses and toy cars. A state-of-the-art kitchen lets students develop their culinary skills. An extensive garden, full of herbs, and boasting a hen house, offers an opportunity to test out horticultural skills.
Students take field trips to learn about different jobs. For example, on a trip to the airport they learn about positions such as flight attendant, fire service, security or aircraft mechanic. Employees from Ford, which has a plant in Cologne, visit the school to talk about their work with students and parents.
While university is free in Germany, students who study vocational fields can achieve financial security earlier on.
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Businesses in Germany seem keen to participate in vocational training. Chambers of commerce and industry support company-school partnerships and help smaller businesses train their interns. Students are even represented in unions, said Julian Uehlecke, a representative of the youth wing of Germany’s largest trade union alliance.
The goal of apprenticeships is to offer training in the classroom and in the workplace. The system gives students “a pretty good chance of finding a well-paid stable job,” said Leonard Geyer, a researcher at the European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research.
Lukas Graf, head of the Swiss Observatory for Vocational Education and Training described the “basic principle” of Germany’s program as providing all-around training: “in the classroom, in the seminar room, and training in the workplace.”
Woodwork supplies at Ursula Kuhr Schule, a school in Cologne, Germany. Credit: Patricia Kühfuss for The Hechinger Report
Mile Glisic, a 15-year-old student at Ursula Kuhr Schule, is doing a long-term work placement at a hardware store and considering an apprenticeship in sales. Earning money while training for a career will help him understand financial planning, and prepare him for a future in which he has a house and family, he said. “I think it’s better because you start to learn what to do with your money when you’re younger,” said Mile.
While the KAoA program has rolled out across all 2,000 schools in this region of Germany, including those that focus on university preparation, Ursula Kuhr Schule prioritizes practical education. Students, more than half of whom come from minority backgrounds, begin career orientation when they are just 12 or 13.
Backers of vocational training say it supports social inclusion by giving young people training that allows them to secure well-paid, stable jobs. But, as in the United States, many argue it limits the prospects of students from marginalized backgrounds and reproduces generational inequalities. This is “a huge debate,” said Graf, of the Swiss Observatory.
To Graf, the value of either a university degree or practical study depends on the particular courses chosen. A university graduate in a field like philosophy, for example, might end up with fewer well-paid opportunities than someone with vocational education training, he said.
The pandemic deepened many parents’ ambivalence about vocational training. While university teaching continued through online platforms, on-the-job training came to a stop when companies had to shut down, said Hubert Ertl, vice president and director of research at Germany’s Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training and professor of vocational education research at the University of Paderborn.
Parents have a big influence: Research by Ertl’s institute shows that when students express interest in a vocational program, their parents often talk them out of it and push them toward higher ed instead. “That’s often not doing the young people any favors,” he said.
His organization works with schools and parents to tackle preconceived ideas about vocational education. “We’ve started to engage with parents quite directly because parents often don’t know about the vocational programs at all, and they don’t know what opportunities they afford.”
Frank Rasche teaches woodwork and technical education at Ursula Kuhr Schule. Credit: Patricia Kühfuss for The Hechinger Report
Tim Becker, 20, is doing an IT apprenticeship after completing the university entry exam at his academically oriented high school in Cologne. At first, his parents, who worked for CocaCola, were uneasy. German parents usually want their children to go to university, “especially if they go to a gymnasium,” Becker wrote in an email, referring to academic high schools.
But in school, his career classes urged students to compare the benefits of university to a practical qualification. For Becker, who’d always loved computers, hands-on training beat out academic theory. “I am just not that guy that likes to sit all day in any lectures at some university,” he said. Some of his old classmates have already dropped out of college and are pursuing internships, he added.
Parents at Ursula Kuhr attend meetings, called “future conferences,” with their kids several times a year. Mile’s parents, who moved to Germany from Serbia when he was nine, have met his teachers frequently. “I know that they were very happy with it,” he said, referring to his career path. “They had some questions about it. But I think they’re thinking good about it because, I mean, it’s only doing good for us.”
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Neriman’s mother, who is a nanny, “loved the idea” that her daughter would teach in grade-school, Neriman said. The teachers and staff at Ursula Kuhr help students gain confidence about their futures, she said. “The teachers do everything for us — they don’t want anyone to finish school and have nothing.”
Other European countries are seeing similar labor market needs. Denmark, whose minister for education trained as a bricklayer, is facing a significant skills shortage in vocational fields, said Camilla Hutters, head of the National Center for Vocational Education, a Danish research organization.
Students are encouraged to think about their futures. “We always talk about different jobs that might be suitable for them,” said Sonja Gryzik, who teaches English, math and career orientation at Ursula Kuhr Schule. Credit: Patricia Kühfuss for The Hechinger Report
In the 1960s, practical and project-based learning was common in Danish schools, Hutters said. That changed in the 1990s, when Denmark scored poorly on international rankings like the Program for International Student Assessment. Now, economic needs are causing a swing back to vocational and career education.
Today, Danish students as young as six might visit a workplace or spend a week learning about a particular career, she said, and discussions are under way to further integrate practical learning in primary school. Danish leaders also want to improve collaboration with business across the education system, including at the university level, Hutters said, where an increasing number of courses are likely to involve working with a company. Political leaders are discussing reforms that would “improve practical learning in the whole system,” she said.
But a tension between on-the-job training and academia persists in Danish thinking, she added. Although policymakers want to expand the practical element across all levels of education, university still remains the goal for many students and their parents. “This is a little bit of a mixed tendency at the same time, right now in Denmark,” she said.
Back in Germany, Becker will finish his internship in September 2024 with expertise in IT services and network security. Throughout his training, he has earned money — and will get up to €1,260 (roughly $1,360) per month in his final year — which has meant he could avoid taking on part-time work as some of his college friends have done. “You don’t need to sit all day in university and go to work in the evening to pay your bills,” he said.
And it suits him. He grew up surrounded by computers, tinkering alongside his dad, and that love of technology persisted through his teens. He likes working with his hands and doing, “something where I can learn practical things,” he said.
This story about German vocational training was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
The post How Schools in Germany Are Preparing Students for Flexible Futures appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.
Class Struggle in the 21st Century
Whoever keeps posting Karl Marx quotes on the breakroom bulliten board needs to stop.– Management Engage yourself with consequential reflections about labor and class struggle in the 21st century with these (not just thought but also action-provoking) five superb books: — Anderson, Elizabeth. 2023. Hijacked: How Neoliberalism Turned the Work Ethic against Workers and How Workers […]
Graham tells staff/organisers Unite will always put arms jobs before fighting Gaza genocide
‘Unhinged’ letter to all staff, organisers and officers includes ‘disgusting’ section about Palestine
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham has sent a letter to all the union’s staff, organisers and officers that has been described as an ‘unhinged’ attempt to counter criticisms. Skwawkbox will publish analysis of the various sections separately – and will first cover what Unite figures have described as Graham’s ‘disgusting’ comments on Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
The letter claims that Graham and Unite have led on opposition to the mass murder in Gaza – despite Graham being widely criticised for her silence on the issue and insiders saying that she had to be pressured into a proper statement on Gaza at all.
And the section, which is titled ‘Palestine’, goes on to make clear that while Unite has given a one-off donation (one that Skwawkbox understands was given suddenly and without approval by Unite’s elected executive) to Doctors without Borders, Ms Graham and the union under her will always prioritise defence industry jobs above any outside issues, despite the union’s official, democratic position in support of sanctions and a boycott against Israel.
The full section reads:
Palestine
Of all the issues that have been used in these attacks, probably the most abhorrent is the attempted weaponisation of the conflict and the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians and the collective punishment of the people of Gaza.
Unite, through the General Secretary and the Chair of the Union and the Executive Council, was the first major union to publicly and unambiguously call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. We were very clear. We have watched on with horror the bombardment and destruction of Gaza, and the unbearable terror, suffering and death of its innocent civilians. We have been unequivocal that the deliberate killing of civilians, hostage-taking and collective punishment are war crimes and should be identified as such.
Unite has also donated £50,000 to Médecins Sans Frontières/ Doctors Without Borders specifically to help the many victims of this horrific conflict. Most recently the General Secretary has written to the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) offering our solidarity after the horrific bombing of their Gaza headquarters which, alongside providing services to workers, was also functioning as a kindergarten and bakery.
However, we cannot and will not endorse any organisation which decides unilaterally and without any discussion (let alone agreement) with the workers themselves, to support the targeting of our members’ workplaces or their jobs. To be clear, this will not happen. No outside body, no matter what their political position, will be allowed to dictate terms to our Union and our members.
It is important to highlight here that it is a core principle of Unite that as a trade union the ‘first claim’ on our priorities is always the protection and advancement of our members’ interests at work. It is very simple. Unite cannot and never will advocate or support any course of action which is counter to that principle. We are a trade union, not a political party or single-issue campaign group.
Therefore, there is no contradiction for a trade union to hold a position of solidarity with Palestinian workers, while at the same time refusing to support campaigns that target our members’ workplaces without their support. Similarly, we cannot be expected to affiliate to organisations that actively work against our members and their jobs.
Examples include groups that look to build networks inside trade unions to undermine the defence industry or demand the disbandment of NATO and AUKUS. Whatever anyone may think personally about those objectives is irrelevant. We are a trade union with thousands of members employed in the defence industry. It is the views of affected members that take precedence in a trade union. That will not change and nor should it. Unite members have recently been attacked directly, been spat at and called “child killers”. We cannot and will not endorse this.
Emphases added
One furious senior insider told Skwawkbox:
She’s effectively saying members working in defence don’t care if what they make ends up killing women and children in Gaza – only jobs matter. Has she bothered asking any of them?
Another said:
Unite’s official position, democratically reached repeatedly at conference and confirmed again just last summer, is that it supports Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel. We didn’t add ‘except where it might affect defence jobs’. We’ve also voted for the end of trade agreements with Israel. This is disgusting by Sharon.
Sharon Graham has been alleged by insiders to have:
- banned Unite officials and national banners from pro-Gaza protests
- banned and smeared films and books exposing the ‘Labour antisemitism’ scam
- placed an official under investigation who refused to cancel a Palestine solidarity fringe event at Labour’s 2023 annual conference
- told her chief of staff to threaten a soon-to-retire official with the loss of a pension bonus if he did not soften his support for Palestinians
Her supporters also prevented debate and votes on Gaza at a meeting of the union’s elected executive earlier this month.
According to human rights group Euro Med Monitor, since 7 October last year Israel has killed over 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded more than double that number, overwhelmingly women and children and many of them with life-changing injuries, while Gaza’s health and school systems have been bombed into collapse, often using US- and UK-made weapons and systems. More than a million people have been forcibly displaced and Gaza is in famine because of Israel’s blockade of food and vital supplies. Israel is formally on trial for genocide before the International Court of Justice and ordered to stop its slaughter – and has been found by UN human rights investigators to be committing genocide.
Unite was contacted for comment but did not respond by the press deadline.
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Love and Technology: An Ethnography of Dating App Users in Berlin – review
Fabian Broeker‘s Love and Technology: An Ethnography of Dating App Users in Berlin explores how dating apps mediate intimacy among young Berliners. Presenting an immersive ethnography of app usage, users’ experiences and perceptions and Berlin’s particular dating culture, Jiangyi Hong finds the book a rich work of contemporary digital anthropology.
Love and Technology: An Ethnography of Dating App Users in Berlin. Fabian Broeker. Routledge. 2023.
With the advent of digital communications technology, dating apps have provided new avenues for finding and nurturing romantic relationships, while also raising many critical questions for social scientists. A recent concern in digital anthropology is that of social relationships and interaction patterns. Intimacy, which people desire in their primary relationships, is now often mediated by dating apps that intervene in one’s lived experience. Fabian Broeker’s Love and Technology: An Ethnography of Dating App Users in Berlin is an immersive ethnography exploring the mediation of intimacy in personal relationships in Berlin.
Through a combination of digital ethnography and narrative methods, Broeker provides an in-depth exploration of the romantic lives of young, Berlin-based dating app users. The ethnographic research entailed online and offline participant observation of how young people in Berlin use dating apps and how the apps shape the experiences, behaviours and perceptions of individuals seeking romantic relationships, sexual experiences and love.
Broeker is primarily concerned with Tinder, Bumble, and OkCupid, the three most popular apps encountered in the fieldwork, and describes different dating experiences, finding that young people in Berlin often use more than one app. Throughout this study, Broeker mentions the notion of “affordances” (1), which occur when particular actions and social practices are made easier or preferable due to “a specific cultural context and setting” (2). Broeker foregrounds the affordances dating apps allow without neglecting the fluid relationship between the user, social and material environment, and technological artefacts.
‘Each app on a phone act[s] as a certain canvas of projection’ (25) that shapes and is interpreted based on young dating users’ own experiences, social circles, and cultural values.
In his fieldwork, Broeker explored what each dating app means to participants, the experiences each app could enable, and the coded notion of intimacy in each app (eg, Tinder is associated with primarily brief sexual encounters). Broeker unfolds the complex relationship between users and dating apps, paying particular attention to how “each app on a phone act[s] as a certain canvas of projection” (25) that shapes and is interpreted based on young dating users’ own experiences, social circles, and cultural values. Positioning dating app users alongside this understanding of intimacy, Broeker astutely observes that for these users, switching between different dating apps is not only about browsing their availability to chat with potential partners but also “symbolises about their own identity and the community their membership would align them with” (37).
As Broeker discusses, in the context of this affordance environment, it is worth considering how other forms of mediated communication affect the dating rituals of Berlin’s dating app users. Therefore, he acknowledges in the field survey the importance “within dating rituals of moving from dating apps to other communication services within the framework of users’ mobile devices and the particular social and technological implications of such transitions” (50). Using the term “ritual”, Broeker tends to view dating as an activity that entails multiple actions within underlying meanings and emphases, some being pivotal moments in the development of the relationship and intimacy. Broeker’s work continues along that trajectory, showing not only how the recognition of the courtship rituals inherent in the dating app affects young people in Berlin, but also the significance of traditionally gendered heterosexual dating rituals, (eg, men taking the initiative in dating).
One area where Broeker succeeds is his nuanced discussion of awareness of social manipulation of space (eg, date locations) and personal understandings of intimacy among dating app users in Berlin.
As Broeker contends, the city space is an important arena in which people use dating apps. That space is formed of social relations and carries a plethora of nuanced social cues and rituals. Broeker spent a lot of his time going to different participants’ workplaces or residences and completed interviews with participants in different streets and neighbourhoods. One area where Broeker succeeds is his nuanced discussion of awareness of social manipulation of space (eg, date locations) and personal understandings of intimacy among dating app users in Berlin. This is significant because previous studies about users’ dating experiences often overlooked multiple interpretations of how people move in and choose to occupy cities. This book speaks directly to that aspect – for example, the perception of a user’s choice for a date location will affect people’s first dating impression; different places integrated into the self-presentation of impression management when people design their profiles; and the choice of the location of the first meeting is regarded as reflecting their personality. Therefore, as Broeker explains, city space is positioned as a stamp of dating users’ identity. How to interpret identity and project their values and desires into city space has become a key moment for users to consider on dating apps.
The dating culture of Berlin is included in the idea of an ‘anything is possible’ city hosting limitless hedonistic possibilities.
Berlin is not only a series of spaces but also an area for dating app users to explore and navigate, and it “is built upon a collective imagination” (133). Broeker interprets participants’ conversations and personal descriptions of the dating experience to show that the city is “a particularly free, inclusive and open metropolis”, giving Berlin “the reputation of a particularly free hedonistic paradise” (133). Therefore, the dating culture of Berlin is included in the idea of an “anything is possible” city hosting limitless hedonistic possibilities.
Another important contribution Broeker makes is his analysis of Berlin’s particular dating culture, with a broader understanding of the intimate relationships that the city’s youth form through dating apps. Broeker discusses Berlin’s unique dating culture through two practices, “stories” (119) and “screenshots” (123). Stories are a form of social currency in people’s social activities, traded in conversation. People share their dating experiences by talking with others and trying to narrate unique dating stories, a common topic in their social circles. Broeker suggests that some people even want to have bad experiences to attract others.
Broeker argues that while the app expands the interaction of potential partners, the use of apps limits the narrative of intimate relationships, making encounters less romantic and special.
Screenshots also play a role in dating experiences. Broeker points out that sharing screenshots is not only a central means by which dating users in Berlin communicate their dating experiences, but also a tool for Berlin young people to “see” dates through visual or textual images on communication platforms. This exploration of storytelling and screenshots circles back to a discussion of dating culture in Berlin. Broeker notes that although the dating app provides a tangible nucleus for users around which dating stories can be constructed and explored, respondents still focused on the idea of nostalgic romantic narratives. Thus, he argues that while the app expands the interaction of potential partners, the use of apps limits the narrative of intimate relationships, making encounters less romantic and special.
While the book’s in-depth presentation and excellent analysis of ethnographic details and theory are impressive, some readers may find its academic nature and use of technical terms difficult. Broeker’s assumption of some knowledge of academic discourse (such as the assumed knowledge of rituals of intimacy and academic definition of polymedia) may be off-putting and inaccessible for the general reader. Overall, Love and Technology is an intelligent and perceptive contribution to the field of digital anthropology. Readers can gain important insights into the intricate interplay between technology, culture and intimacy from Broeker’s work. This book will inspire and provoke thought, regardless of whether you are a scholar interested in modern intimacy and its relations to technology or a general reader interested in the ways that technology impacts our romantic lives.
Note: This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Image credit: Studio Romantic on Shutterstock.
A Farm of One’s Own
It was a day of joy and relief for Kamla: Her daughter was getting married—and the night before, it had rained. Far from a bad omen, the downpour had been ever welcome. Kamla is a farmer, whose livelihood is directly dependent on the land she cultivates, the land that gives her and her family a variety of vegetable crops to eat and to sell, like beetroots, tomatoes, beans, and chilis.
It’s Good Work—If You Can Get It
As the world of work sagged and collapsed, University of North Carolina sociologist and W-2 worker Alexandrea Ravenelle decided to document this economic shock in real time....
Back to the office: a solution in search of a problem
My latest in Inside Story, reposted from Substack
Managers need to recognise that the best way to dissipate authority is to fail in its exercise
Authority is powerful yet intangible. The capacity to give an order and expect it to be obeyed may rest ultimately on a threat to sanction those who disobey but it can rarely survive large-scale disobedience.
The modern era has seen many kinds of traditional authority come under challenge, but until now the “right of managers to manage” has remained largely immune. If anything, the managers’ power has increased as the countervailing power of unions has declined. But the rise of working from home and, more recently, Labor’s right to disconnect legislation pose unprecedented threats to the power of managers over information workers — those employees formerly known as “office workers.”
To see how this might play out, it’s worth considering the decline of another once-powerful authority, the Catholic Church.
In the early 1960s, following the development of reliable oral contraception, the leaders of the church had to decide whether to accept the Pill as a permissible way for married couples to plan their families. Pope John XXIII established a pontifical commission on birth control to reconsider Catholic doctrine on this topic.
It was a crucial decision precisely because marriage and sex were the most important areas in which the authority of the Church remained supreme and precise rules could be laid down — and generally enforced — among the faithful.
Most people, after all, have no trouble observing the commandments against theft and murder. Other sins like anger, pride and sloth are very much in the eye of the beholder. But the rules regulating who can marry whom and what kind of sexual behaviour is permissible are precise and demanding, to the point that the term “morals” is commonly taken to imply sexual morals. The official celibacy of priests, who thereby showed even more restraint than was demanded of ordinary Catholics, added to the mystique of clerical power.
By the time the commission reported in 1966 John XXIII had been replaced by Pope Paul VI. The commission concluded that artificial birth control was not intrinsically evil and that Catholic couples should be allowed to decide for themselves about the methods they employed. But five of the commission’s sixty-nine members took the opposite view in a minority report.
In the encyclical Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI made his fateful rejection of all forms of artificial contraception. As an attempt to exercise and shore up authority it failed completely. The realities of raising large families and dealing with unplanned pregnancies were far removed from the experience of priests and theologians. And the church’s evident demographic motive (the desire for big Catholic families to fill the pews) further undermined the legitimacy of the prohibition.
Previously loyal Catholics ignored Pope Paul’s ruling, in many cases marking their first step away from the Church. Doctrines restricting marriage between Catholics and non-Catholics, including the requirement that children be raised as Catholics, also became little more than formalities commanding at most notional obedience.
The breakdown of clerical authority set the scene for the exposure of clerical child abuse from the 1990s on. Although accusations of this kind had been around for many years, the authority of the church had ensured that critics were silenced or disbelieved.
It is hard to know for sure what would have happened if Pope Paul had chosen differently. The membership and social standing of Protestant denominations, nearly all which accepted contraception, have also declined, though not as much as a Catholic Church that pinned its authority on personal morality. Humanae Vitae’s attempt to exercise papal authority succeeded only in exposing its illusory nature.
In the struggle over working from home and the “freedom to disconnect” we’re seeing something similar happen to the authority of managers.
Following the arrival of Covid-19 in early 2020, working from home went from being a rare indulgence to a general necessity, at least for those whose work could be done with a telephone and a computer. Hardly any time was available for preparation: in mid March, Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese were still planning to attend football matches; a week later, Australia was in lockdown.
Offices and schools closed. Workers had to convert their kitchen tables or (if they were lucky) spare bedrooms into workstations using whatever equipment they had available. And, to make things even tougher, parents had to take responsibility for the remote education of their children.
Despite the already extensive evidence of the benefits of remote work, many managers expected chaos and a massive reduction in productivity. But information-based work of all kinds carried on without any obvious interruption. Insurance policies were renewed, bills were issued and paid, newspapers and magazines continued to be published. Meetings, that scourge of modern working life, continued to take place, though now over Zoom.
Once the lockdown phase of the pandemic was over, workers were in no hurry to return to the office. The benefits of shorter commuting times and the flexibility to handle family responsibilities were obvious, while adverse impacts on productivity, if any, were hard to discern.
Sceptics argued that working from home, though fine for current employees, would pose major difficulties for the “onboarding” of new staff. Four years into the new era, though, around half of all workers are in jobs they started after the pandemic began. Far from lamenting the lack of office camaraderie and mentorship, these new hires are among the most resistant to the removal of a working condition they have taken for granted since the start.
Nevertheless, chief executives have issued an almost daily drumbeat of demands for a return to five-day office attendance and threatened dire consequences for those who don’t comply. Although these threats sometimes appear to have an effect, workers generally stop complying. As long as they are still doing their jobs, their immediate managers have little incentive to discipline them, especially as the most capable workers are often the most resistant to close supervision. Three days of office attendance a week has become the new normal for large parts of the workforce, and attempts to change this reality are proving largely fruitless.
The upshot is that attendance rates have barely changed after more than two years of back-to-the-office announcements. The Kastle Systems Back to Work Barometer, a weekly measure of US office attendance as a percentage of February 2020 levels, largely kept within the narrow range of 46 to 50 per cent over the course of 2023.
This fact is finally sinking in. Sandwiched between two pieces about back-to-the-office pushes by diehard employers, the Australian Financial Review recently ran up the white flag with a piece headlined “Return to Office Stalls as Companies Give Up on Five Days a Week.”
This trend, significant in itself, also marks a change in power relations between managers and workers. Behind all the talk about “water cooler conversations” and “synergies,” the real reason for demanding the physical presence of workers is that it makes it easier for managers to exercise authority. The failure of “back to the office” prefigures a major realignment of power relationships at work.
Conversely, the success of working from home in the face of dire predictions undermines one of the key foundations of the “right to manage,” namely the assumption that managers have a better understanding of the organisations they head than do the people who work in them. Despite a vast literature on leadership, the capacity of managers to lead their workers in their preferred direction has proved very limited.
The other side of the remote work debate is the right to disconnect. The same managers who insisted that workers should be physically present at the office in standard working hours (and sometimes longer) also came to expect responses to phone calls and emails at any time of the day or night. The supposed need for an urgent response typically reflected sloppiness on the part of managers incapable of organising their own work schedules to take account of the need for work–life balance.
Once again, managers have attempted to draw a line in the sand. Opposition leader Peter Dutton has backed them, promising to repeal the right to disconnect if the Coalition wins the next election. It’s a striking illustration of the importance of power to the managerial class that Dutton has chosen to fight on this issue while capitulating to the government’s broken promise on the Stage 3 tax cuts, which would have delivered big financial benefits to his strongest supporters.
Can this trend be reversed? The not-so-secret hope is that high unemployment will turn the tables. As Tim Gurner (of “avocado toast” fame) put it, “We need pain in the economy… and employees need to reminded of who is boss.” US tech firms have put that view to the test with large-scale sackings, many focused on remote workers. But the other side of remote work is mobility. Many of those fired in the recent tech layoffs have found new jobs, often also remote.
In the absence of a really deep recession, firms that demand and enforce full-time attendance will find themselves with a limited pool of disgruntled workers dominated by those with limited outside options.
Popular stories — from King Canute’s attempt to turn back the tide (apparently to make fools of obsequious courtiers who suggested he could do it) to Hans Christian Anderson’s naked emperor — have made the point that the best way to dissipate authority is to fail in its exercise. Pope Paul ignored that lesson and the Catholic Church paid the price. Now, it seems, managers are doing the same. •Back to the office: a solution in search of a problem
Moving to Rwanda
So when I joined the team last month, I mentioned that I work in development. That means I move around to different countries, to work on various projects. And in two weeks, I will be moving to Rwanda, in Central Africa.
A couple of notes on this, for those who find such things interesting.
1) Rwanda is not exactly a household name. It’s a small country — about the size of Israel or Albania, a bit bigger than Wales — and right in the exact middle of Africa, just off the equator. If the name strikes a bell, it’s most likely either for the horrific 1990s genocide; or for gorillas; or, more recently, for the British government’s dubious plan to ship asylum seekers there.
This is a shame, because Rwanda is an extremely interesting country. For starters, it has one of the fastest growing economies in the region. A generation ago, it was one of the absolutely poorest countries in the world; today it’s near the top of the bottom decile, and by 2030 it will officially be “lower middle income”. And if you spend some time in Kigali, you’ll understand why. There’s not the frenetic energy you encounter in some other African capitals. Instead there are clean streets, paved roads without potholes, people obeying traffic laws, and a general sense of determination and — there’s no other word for it — discipline. Rwandans are organized, and they plan ahead.
A single minor example: Rwanda started with the usual African pattern of growing a few crops (coffee, tea), doing some mining, and exporting those primary products. But they have no intention of keeping that pattern. Rwanda has an industrial policy, and it is methodically implementing that policy. They import palm oil from the DR Congo, and turn it into everything from paint to pharmaceuticals. They import scrap metal from Tanzania and Kenya, run it through a couple of local smelters, and export it to Congo as rebar. They’re working hard to climb the value chain on everything from potato chips to roof tiles.
As a development guy, this is extremely interesting, and I’m really looking forward to engaging with it.
2) In case it’s not clear from the above, Rwanda is safe, clean, and has no significant security issues. They’ve also done an amazing job of cutting back on tropical diseases. (Which, for a Central African country, is no easy task.) So, no need to say “keep safe!” or any such. Kigali is literally safer than Seattle or Glasgow.
3) On a personal note, I’ve been freelancing for the last year, and I’m really looking forward to full-time work again. The nature of my job is that I run large development projects, usually for USAID. This is both a career and a profession. It requires a bunch of particular skills, some of which take a while to acquire. So when I’m working, I’m paid pretty well. But I have exactly zero job security and no assurance of continued employment after a project ends. In fact, it’s finding another position immediately after a project ends is the weird exception: it’s much more typical to be thrown back into unemployment or freelancing. So, as a career, it’s gig economy. High end professional / white collar, but still gig economy.
To be clear, this is a description, not a complaint. We don’t love the instability and insecurity, but it comes with the career, and we’ve learned to work around it. That said, consider it another “who’s in the precariat” data point.
4) Other than that, AMA.
Cartoon: Forced labor funnies
This cartoon is based on the AP story entitled "Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands" that was recently published here on DK. (It's a long piece, so if you're in a hurry, you can check out the AP’s "takeaways" article summarizing the report.) To put it briefly, prisoners are doing a lot more labor in the food supply chain than I think most of us realized. While some inmates choose to work, many are compelled to do so under threat of punishment. The 13th Amendment allows involuntary labor as punishment for a crime, so the practice -- which disproportionately affects people of color -- can look an awful lot like slavery. The Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, where inmates do farm work, is literally located on a former slave plantation.
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