This presentation examines the early telecommuting discourse of the 80s and 90s, understanding it as a pedagogical context for white plasticity, an ecological project where racial privilege is protected through the transformation of homes and inhabitants. Rationalized initially as a crisis of adjustment, pedagogies of telecommuting were disseminated largely to upper, middle-classed white professionals to build a “telecommuting personality,” a subjectivity that was also meant to buffer them from the growing precarious nature of jobs. Not content to focus simply on work, however, telecommuting gurus took occasion to urge the enhancement of relationships between partners, families, and communities. The home office was core to this imaginary. Convertible, modular, ergonomic home office that can be changed to suit the needs of the home’s many inhabitants were said to yield more integrated and rounded personalities that would radiate outwards, creating for emotionally mature children and stronger community bonds. Emerging at a moment where “telecommuting” condensed the political stakes of digital labor, this strand of discourse reveals how working-from-home was appropriated to ensure the protection of white plasticity – the racialized capability of adaptation that was to be passed as inheritance from parents to progeny.

The speaker is Dr Hong Renyi, Assistant Professor at NUS Communications and New Media. Dr Hong is primarily interested in labor and its relationships with affect, digital culture and neoliberal capitalism. He has received awards for his work at the International Communication Association and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Published work can be found in New Media & Society, European Journal of Cultural Studies, tripleC and the International Journal of Communication, among others.