ABSTRACT
The critical language of “precarity”, which its etymological meaning points to pray as in begging for improvement in difficult times, was able to counter-act the official and positive sounding discourse of “flexibility”. This chapter offers a contextualization of the times and places from which social organizing around precarity emerged. The privatization of public services and rise of atypical forms of labor across the European Union provided the ground for a series of initial grassroots expressions of discontent. Each of these proto-precarity struggles –specifically those coming out of Italy, Spain and France – had a unique context and timeline. Finally, the chapter introduces some of the creative tactics used by unemployed movements to cope with these structural economic shifts.
