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Hospitality is popularly regarded as unskilled work and the industry relies on a young labour force. This paper examines the role of youth in the way that the ‘unskilled’ status of hospitality labour is defined and contested by workers. Drawing on qualitative data collected with hospitality workers, the paper creates new connections between theories of affective labour, the politics of skills, and conceptions of youth in relation to work. The paper shows that the capacity to be ‘fun’ and produce affects of enjoyment in hospitality venues is essentialised as an attribute of youth, who are regarded as essentially unskilled. Youth is enacted in the social relations of affective labour, including the requirement to produce affects of enjoyment. The paper shows how theories of affective labour can be developed to consider the materialities of low-wage service employment and demonstrates the significance of youthful subjectivities to social relations of hospitality work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses how regulations on hair are constructed and justified in the uniform policies of Queensland high schools. Covering Government, Catholic, and Protestant schools, this paper explores how uniform policy across these sectors deploys the rhetoric of community values and appropriate representation, promoting the idea that uniformity is unity. Drawing on an analysis of 50 uniform policies from Queensland schools, I explore how hair is regulated by such policies and what justifications are provided for this regulation. In doing so, I examine the idea of an imagined, idealised student body and how these regulations impact students’ ability to negotiate with gendered, classed, and racialised constructions of community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the intricate dynamics of digital welfare within the context of late-capitalist welfare states, focusing on the advanced digitalisation initiatives of Denmark. It offers a critical analysis of the concept of ‘digital welfare’ – defined as the integration of digital technologies into the frameworks of social protection. Central to the research is how the Danish welfare state, recognised for its e-government leadership, engages with and incorporates critiques to sustain its approach to digital transformation. Utilising Boltanski's theories on the absorption of capitalist critique and Mathiesen's ‘silently silencing’ concept, the study examines the state's proficiency in assimilating criticism. The findings reveal the persistent flexibility of late-capitalist governance systems, especially in how digital welfare policies are leveraged to reconnect citizens with state mechanisms while simultaneously mitigating dissent. The research highlights the necessity for ongoing investigation into the implications of digitalisation for welfare institutions and societal structures at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much envisaging of the future is inherently ableist. Euro-American cultural imaginaries traditionally have emphasised the narrative of medical progress, assuming the end of impairment. Disability is a frequent trope for and in dystopias, whereas more positive or progressive futures ignore the presence and aspirations of disabled people who are frequently excluded from individual and collective endeavours to articulate and shape the future. They are presumed to be in effect ‘futureless’, lacking a future of value, leaving an unoccupied space for existing inequalities and privileges to flourish. This paper brings disability studies and sociology of futures into dialogue and makes the case for creating crip space(s) within sociologies of the future. Foregrounding disability can trouble and enrich sociological engagements with futurity, while analytic perspectives from sociology of futures can inform scholarship in disability studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eco-anxiety and associated emotions are on the rise. International estimates range from 25–68% prevalence. Australians now regard climate change as their top concern for the future, with some young people reconsidering their intentions to become parents. The emotional sequela from climate change is becoming clearer. How it is conceptualised, responded to, and reinforced within public discourse requires further consideration. This paper presents a multi-method qualitative text and discourse analysis of Australian online news articles published in 2022 reporting on emotions and our ecological future. Drawing on sociological theories of emotions and Foucauldian conceptualisations of discourse, we present insights into the potency of emotions and discourses within online news media. We identify four differing conceptualisations of emotions, interpret what these discourses can do, and conclude with ways in which the public can reclaim agency in resisting discourses that engender passivity in the context of future ecological threats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Being diagnosed with a life-limiting illness entails a fundamental reshaping of one's relationship with the future. From ‘bucket lists’ of destinations and experiences to ‘flights of hope’ for experimental or specialised medical care, diagnoses of serious illness are deeply entwined with travel in Australian cultural narratives. In this paper, we draw on a thematic analysis of interviews with cancer patients and their carers to ask what meanings are attached to narratives of travel – whether completed or constrained, imagined or interrupted – in the context of a cancer diagnosis. Focusing on narratives of travel draws attention to themes of disruption, resilience, autonomy and living a meaningful life within the precarious timescape of cancer. Through this analysis of time and travel, we examine how normative expectations of how to live with or beyond cancer can produce tensions, particularly in the uncertain but precariously hopeful landscape of precision cancer treatments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]