Work, Employment and Society, Ahead of Print.
This article explores the role of resistance as a micro-political practice carried out by female Spanish teleworkers. Drawing on a qualitative study focused on female workers in different cities in Spain, we conceive telework as a labour logic in which resistance is the cornerstone of meaning and subjectivity creation. Micro-practices of resistance are analysed following de Certeau’s notion of tactics and strategies, honing in on the limitations, restrictions, problems and difficulties faced by female teleworkers as they try to balance the different dimensions of their lives, namely family, work and everyday activities. The accounts given by the participants in our study reveal key tactics which ultimately serve to denounce prevailing work ideologies that uphold the patriarchy and promote false flexibility. These tactics allow teleworkers to define a subjectivity in which motherhood and telework are both absolutely relevant.