Project Title

Tarmacking on Shifting Ground: Aspiring and Job-Seeking in the "Future of Work" Present

Project Description

Salma's research examines job-seeking in contexts with high levels of unemployment and precarity. Her dissertation investigated "tarmacking", the arduous search for employment as it is referred to colloquially in East Africa. Using a mixed methods approach, the project traces the experiences of young graduates in Nairobi, Kenya from their aspirations in school, to their transition into the workforce, and finally, to the strategies deployed by less successful job-seekers. In addition to these micro-level dynamics, Salma is also interested in trends in the global political economy that implicate work, and institutional and cultural responses to labor market processes.