SPECIAL ISSUE N. 174(1)/2026
In this special issue we aim to investigate the new sociocultural trends related to the ways in which work is experienced and discussed - particularly looking at relation between identity and work in post-industrial societies - and exploring phenomena the such as: the forms of detachment, resignation, and refusal of work, the expression of novel forms of work and employment, the perceived impacts of working lives on personal health, among the other possible topics that could help answer the question “is work not working anymore?”. By raising this question, we encourage the multiplication of studies on the role that the meaningfulness of work plays in enhancing processes of emancipation (especially with regard to the role played by the Covid pandemic in triggering forms of reflexivity and recalibration of the work-life balance) and on the ways in which work and employment relations are called into question in our societies, both at an individual and collective level. This also means investigating the changing social imaginaries and values of work in a moment of paradigmatic reversal of the assumptions that have determined capitalism so far; the pandemic is in fact only a minor example of the ways in which the Anthropocene/Capitalocene could affect our society, starting exactly by questioning its priorities.