Privileged Precarities: An Organizational Ethnography of Early Career Workers at the United Nations

An ethnography on early-career workers facing job insecurity at the United Nations.

Rapid economic changes since the 1970s have left many early-career workers in a precarious double-bind-caught between organizational visions shaped during the post-war boom and the austere reality that they may need to reinvent their careers overnight. Privileged Precarities explores this dilemma through an ethnographic study of early-career professionals at the United Nations. Drawing on a variety of social theories, Linda M. Mulli untangles the personal narratives UN workers craft to make sense of their job insecurity, increased flexibility, and relative privilege. These striking case studies offer broad insights into the mechanisms of organizational power and individual agency in post-Fordist, capitalist society.