Co-­‐Research: 112

In Italy, beginning in the 1950s, Marxists of the workerist (operaismo) school – a precursor to autonomist thought in the era of the mass worker – tried with varying

degrees of success to gain access to the industrial production facilities that were the nexus of exploited labour at that point in time. Gathered around the journal Quaderni Rossi (1961-1965), militant co-researchers like Raniero Panzieri and Romano Alquati “attempted to explain the crisis of the workers’ movement during the fifties and early sixties (…) [by recourse to] the intense transformations in the productive process and the composition of the labour force, introduced by the Scientific Organization of Work” (Malo de Molina, 2004a). Hampered by suspicious owners/managers that rightly considered these individuals rabble rousers and by suspicious workers who in the past were only made to work harder and faster because of researchers observing their actions, co-research was difficult and time consuming.

“Time and Motion” studies of the sort undertaken and accomplished by Taylor and his progeny in their attempts to scientifically manage an individual’s labour, resulted in forcing the worker to work harder and at more rote and repetitive tasks. This made workers weary and hostile towards any researcher who wanted to study them and their labour. However, co-researchers had one central advantage when it came to convincing workers of their intentions. They and their colleagues not only infiltrated the factories, but also often got jobs therein and were, therefore, often working alongside their research partners. As the research progressed, then, it became clear that the intentions of co- researchers were antithetical to those of previous scholars who meant only to intensify the labouring process.

The goals of co-research remain consistent with the aspirations of Marx, but the manner in which information was gathered changed significantly. Seeking to uncover and understand the nature of exploitation in the industrial factories of Italy, co-researchers infiltrated the factory and tried to motivate and inspire struggles from within. The fundamental difference between Marx’s research methodology and the methodology of co-research, therefore, hinges on the prefix attached to the latter. Marx never worked alongside his research subjects in the factory, co-researchers did. By working next to and with their subjects, experiencing the same day-to-day monotony and repetition, and by gaining an insight into the conditions and contexts of industrial labour by not only asking questions of others, but also by becoming industrial labourers themselves, co-research incorporates the researcher into the process of gathering and analyzing information much more directly than did the method used by Marx. Whereas Marx conducted his inquiry from afar, co-research begins in the proverbial belly of the beast.

Co-research starts on the shop floor and is, much like A Workers’ Inquiry, unabashedly and unapologetically politically motivated. According to Marta Malo de Molina, the purpose of co-research was to “construct platforms for struggle” so as to “reopen spaces of conflict and reinvigorate workers’ demands” (2004a). By speaking with co-workers, asking them questions, getting their impression of their work

conditions, assessing how they feel, what they see as demeaning or frustrating, observing, that is, worker behaviour first-hand, the aim was to make obvious the exploitative abuses and to rouse the ire of those being exploited so that they too might rise in unison and in struggle. Antonio Negri describes the procedures and aims of co-research this way.

In terms of practice, ‘co-research’ simply meant using the method of inquiry as a means of identifying the worker’s levels of consciousness and awareness among workers of the processes in which they, as productive subjects, were engaged. So one would go into a factory, make contact with the workers, and, together, with them, conduct an inquiry into their

conditions of work; here co-research obviously involves building a

description of the productive cycle and identifying each worker’s function within that cycle; but at the same time it also involves assessing the levels of exploitation which each of them undergoes. It also involves assessing the workers’ capacity for reaction – in other words, their awareness of their exploitation in the system of machinery and in relation to the structure of command. Thus, as the research moves forward, co-research builds possibilities for struggle in the factory. (2008, pp. 162-163)

The commonalities between A Workers’ Inquiry and co-research make evident the alterations and amendments required of this tradition if it is to continue yielding

insightful information in the present day and age. In the contemporary era of unwaged immaterial labour, new challenges and opportunities regarding this methodological lineage present themselves in sharp relief when the similarities and differences between the past and the present are laid bare.22

4.4  Repetitions  and  Difference:      

Marx’s A Workers’ Inquiry and the methodology of co-research share four primary attributes that, when compared to the characteristics of the unwaged immaterial labour taking place on Flickr, make clear the need for further methodological innovation. The first similarity between Marx’s A Workers’ Inquiry and co-research is that both rely on communicating with workers in an attempt to get their impressions of the workplace, their job, and their knowledge regarding their own exploitation. This communicative imperative grounds the theoretical abstractions in the empirical experiences and thoughts of the workers themselves. The second similarity is the location where research subjects are recruited to participate in the research. In both cases, factory labour takes place at a