Non-permanent workers and their learning in a developmental state

Abstract

Moving beyond binary conceptual understandings of non-permanent work as either emancipatory or leading to precarity, Sadik offers a nuanced understanding of the lived realities of non-permanent workers in Singapore that relates to their struggles negotiating the socio-economic and socio-cultural institutions around them. While these workers now have greater flexibility to drive their careers in new ways, they face particular challenges in an environment where policies, practices, social norms and cues tilt heavily towards supporting workers in permanent work arrangements as part of the complex machinery of the developmental state. Their learning and development thus require the support of new institutions to initiate them into relevant social norms, practices, and cues around non-permanent work, requiring a more expansive understanding of lifelong learning rooted in situated practice.