Neither Precarious Nor Entrepreneur: The Subjective Experience of Hybrid Self-employed Workers

This paper focuses on the ‘hybridity’ of solo self-employment by shedding light on the lived experiences and meanings of the subjects within their institutional and socio-economic contexts. It offers an original perspective to the study of the hybridisation of work by linking between subjective and objective conditions underpinning solo self-employed workers. We found that solo-self employed workers exercise agency over their working lives when facing high levels of insecurity, and that their contextualised experiences are related to the dominant narratives about self-employment. At the same time, however, we also point out that solo self-employed are engaged in (re)-constructing their alternative and dissonant narratives as well.status: Published onlin