Working in Jamie's Kitchen : Salvation, Passion and Young Workers

Abstract

In the UK in 2002 the high profile celebrity chef Jamie Oliver set out to transform a group of unemployed young Londoners into enterprising, passionate workers. This often dramatic process of transformation was captured, even manipulated and managed, in the hugely successful Channel 4 TV series Jamie's Kitchen. Peter Kelly and Lyn Harrison use material from this series and from a sister show - Jamie's Kitchen Australia - to examine the struggles by these young people, and those that train and manage them, to develop a passionate orientation for work. Using the social theories of Michel Foucault and Zygmunt Bauman, among others, the book highlights many of the challenges we all face as we seek to secure a precarious form of salvation through work, in the globalised labour markets of the 21st century. With a focus on young workers the authors provide powerful new ways of thinking about Generation Y, passionate forms of self-hood at work, and the hopes and dilemmas that come from imagining that paid work is the one way in which many of us can find meaning and purpose in our lives.

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