Precarity: city explorations

● In the printed publication on precarity in Europe there's the chance to narrate non-fictional or even fictional stories that represent the theme of precarity from your point of view. This is also a chance, for those who like writing and wish to give a contribution, to get your work on a printed publication that is going to be distributed.

● One option is that you identify, as a city group, a story of a precarious worker that it would be interesting to tell 'cause it's emblematic to you or to your city group.

● A storyteller, then, is chosen by the city group to tell the story. He/she is accompanied by the precarious worker around the neighbourhood where the precarious worker lives, while the storyteller asks questions, records the answers, or takes notes, or even shoots videos depending on his/her preferences. The precarious worker tells his/her experience of the different places (his/her workplace, his/her house, the shops he/she's accustomed to go to, the places he/she visits on a weekly basis) and on how these places are related to her everyday life and how they make him/her feel. While visiting the places, always take picture, this will help to visualize the scenes that you will be describing.

● The storyteller finally narrates the stories and gather the photographic material.

● Another idea could be to work in pairs, in order to come out with a fictional story. In the next slides you find some clues about how the process could look like.

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Fictional stories about precarityStep 1

Person A takes notes about the neighbourhood he/she lives in. They can be either related or not to the theme.

Here's some suggestions for the things to look at and to write down.

(1) Write down what you see and what your body feels. Clues: notice noises, smells.

Examples of things that you could look at are: colors, people's clothes, goods that are sold in shops or markets, the kind of food you see.

Looking at people's face: expression, anger, stress, joy.

Notice also the actions people do, listen to their conversations or imagine why they're doing those actions.

Important! write down in a readable way: person B will have to understand what you wrote!

Step 2

Person B, which lives in a different part of the city and don't know much about that neighbourhood, reads A's notes.

Step 3

B “explores” that neighbourhood looking at person A's notes and noticing the differences, and imagining links between what he/she sees and A's experience of the places:

Is there anything different from what I expected by reading A's notes?

Where could I find the characters that A described, and where might they be at what time of the day?

What might they be doing and where exactly?

Always take photos of what you see!

Step 4

B writes down a description of his/her own exploration or a fictional story based on his/her observation of that neighbourhood that reminds the topic of precarity. It might be because of the story, or because of an adjective that he/she used of found in A's notes or because of some image that recalls our theme.