Time Autonomy and Regulatory Pluralism: Theorising Work from the Margins

Abstract

This article develops a theoretical framework for analysing time autonomy among marginalised workers by extending Jean-Daniel Reynaud's social regulation theory in dialogue with Southern theory, epistemologies of the South and critical border studies. It argues that time autonomy is the temporal dimension of regulatory pluralism: when workers exercise autonomous regulation over working time, they pluralise the temporal order. Drawing on 140 interviews with Portuguese posted workers, Chinese factory workers, Malaysian office workers and French teleworkers (2011-2024), the analysis shows how marginalised groups create autonomous regulatory systems that operate alongside, against or outside institutional frameworks. Three concepts emerge: the subsistence- continuity-projection complex, which integrates survival imperatives, intergenerational continuity and future aspirations; regulatory microenvironments, where multiple normative orders coexist without any single order achieving dominance; and adaptive hybridisation, through which imported workplace models are transformed rather than simply implemented. Together, these concepts extend labour sociology by surfacing collective and relational dimensions of time autonomy that Northern frameworks tend to obscure.