Gender, Class and Occupation

Working Class Men doing Dirty Work

Ruth Simpson, Jason Hughes, Natasha Slutskaya

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781137439673
• eBook ISBN: 9781137439697
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This insightful new study explores an emerging and growing interest in Sociology and Organization Studies which concerns the meanings and experiences of 'dirty' work. Based on a unique study of male street cleaners, refuse collectors, graffiti removers and butchers, and drawing on Bourdieu as a theoretical frame, it presents an 'embodied' understanding of 'dirty' work. Gender, Work and Occupation explores new avenues of workplace studies, highlighting how material conditions both support and constrain processes of occupation-based ideological constructions. Using original field research, the authors put forward a different agenda in terms of how we think about dirty work, and how we can explore and understand the 'lived experiences' of dirty workers. 

© The Author(s) 2016

Ruth Simpson, Jason Hughes and Natasha SlutskayaGender, Class and Occupation10.1057/978-1-137-43969-7_1

Begin Abstract

1. Gender, Class and Occupation: Introduction

Ruth Simpson¹ , Jason Hughes² and Natasha Slutskaya³

(1)

Brunel Business School, Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK

(2)

Department of Sociology, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

(3)

School of Business, Management and Economics, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK

End Abstract

Introduction

This book is about dirty work, that is, work that is seen as distasteful and/or undesirable. More specifically, it explores the experiences of men undertaking ‘physically tainted’ occupations (Ashforth and Kreiner 1999) namely, jobs that primarily involve direct contact with physical dirt. Through an ethnographic study of white working class men employed as butchers, street cleaners, refuse collectors (including recycling tip workers) and graffiti removers we promote an ‘embodied’ understanding of such work which incorporates the significance of the identity characteristics of those involved (e.g. based on gender, class, race) as well as of the materiality of dealing with dirt and its manifestations. We follow other work in the area (e.g. Ashforth and Kreiner 1999, 2014a; Ashforth et al. 2007; Dick 2005; Tracy and Scott 2006) by exploring the creation of meanings and the symbolic management of taint, such as through normalisation strategies and the creation of occupational ideologies that help create a positive sense of self. However, in a deviation from accounts dominant in the field we foreground, additionally, the embodied and material dimensions of dirty work. Here we highlight the effects and experiences of dirt as matter (waste, blood, grime, staining); the material practices of dealing with dirt and its removal; the emotional dimensions involved; and how physical spaces and places are implicated in the ways in which taint is managed. Further, we show how, in a co-constitutive sense, symbolic management is rooted in the particular materialities involved and how the latter can support and/or undermine the meanings afforded to such work.

Furthering an Embodied Understanding of Dirty Work

Dirty work emerged as a focus within the Chicago School of Sociology from the 1900s to 1960s as part of a broader sociological study of urban spaces and their role in the development of society. Here, Everett Hughes (1962) in his published text Good People and Dirty Work was prominent in identifying work that could be at once physically disgusting, counter to moral conceptions, and/or a symbol of social degradation. This was developed by Ashforth and Kreiner (1999) who, drawing on Hughes’s original typology, delineate three forms of taint based on different occupations or roles: physical taint namely, occupations associated with dirt or danger (e.g. refuse collectors, miners); social taint namely, occupations involving regular contact with people from stigmatised groups or where the job is seen as servile to others (e.g. prison officers, domestic workers); and moral taint namely, occupations regarded as sinful or of dubious virtue (e.g. debt collectors, sex workers).

Here, the notion of physical taint goes some way in acknowledging an occupation’s association with the materiality of dirt. However, while physical dirt is acknowledged within this category, it is at the same time undermined by an emphasis on the socially constructed nature of dirt, discussed further in Chap. 4. Here dirtiness is not seen as inherent to the work itself but is based on subjective assessment, that is, it is in the ‘eye of the beholder’. Further, although the potential for occupations to be tainted on more than one dimension is recognised, the three forms of taint are tied largely to descriptors of occupations or roles where there is a focus on differences between them (e.g. Ashforth and Kreiner 2014a) rather than on how such categories might interact. The embodied nature of such work (e.g. the significance of the identity characteristics of those undertaking it) that goes beyond categorisations based on occupation or role as well as the interplay between the material and the symbolic—how each is implicated in the other—are accordingly overlooked.

In seeking to foreground an embodied understanding of dirty work, (see also Simpson et al. 2012; Hughes, J. et al. forthcoming) this book highlights how dirty work is intimately tied to notions of ‘suitability’ based on gender, class and race; how the materiality of matter through staining, emotions, bodily fatigue, as well as day-to-day practices based on the removal or transformation of dirt can both support and undermine the symbolic management of taint; and how the symbolic and the material may accordingly intertwine. As Barley and Kunda (2001) note, a focus on the material, physical aspects and the embodied nature of work-related involvement offers a more exhaustive account of work experiences and helps discover less noticeable and less attended elements of dirty work such as the material conditions, the monotony, the tiredness and the physical strain. Thus, the chapters in this book focus in different ways on the materiality of dirt as well as the ways in which workers involved construct meanings that afford positive value to dirty work—and how each is implicated in the other.

Drawing on Hardy and Thomas’s (2015) taxonomy, and as discussed further in Chap. 4, we look in particular at the interrelationship between bodies, objects, practices and spaces as well as how categories of difference such as class, gender and race intercede in how dirt is encountered and experienced. These serve to focus attention towards the interdependence of the material and the discursive in understanding relations of power with the body centrally involved as a source and agent of experience; as implicated in material practices; and through embodied encounters with ‘individuals, ideas, objects and artefacts’ that are acted out within particular spaces and locales.

Some of these dynamics were experienced as we collected data for our study. As we discuss further below, we relied in part on participant and non-participant observation, allowing direct experience of the day-to-day management and handling of dirt. As we accompanied the refuse collection team on their daily rounds we became acutely aware of the physical dimensions of work based around the removal of dirt—weather conditions that can make the work particularly difficult or uncomfortable, feelings of disgust from the smell or touch of decaying matter, and the strain on bodies from the effort of repetitive tasks that make up the routines and practices of a working day. Not surprisingly, given our novice status, the effort of lifting hundreds of bags and the monotony of the work exhausted us and by mid-morning we felt we had had enough—so that it was with great relief that we left the team in the early afternoon so as not to slow down the work. Our aching muscles got considerably worse by the end of the second day.

Dirt therefore has a physical presence as ‘object’ or ‘matter’, felt through the materiality of its touch (sliminess, stickiness) and the smells that adhere to the body. This attests to elements of work that comprise a set of localised and recurrent activities and practices—reflective of how the performance of a particular task within a specific time and locality might affect, in bodily terms, the worker who performs it. This can be seen through, for example, monotony, tiredness and physical strain as well as (from the research team, at least) emotions of disgust. In this vein, the chapters in this book focus in different ways on how these dynamics (e.g. of bodies, practices, objects, space) ‘play out’ in the context of physically tainted work.

Further, we point to how dirty work and the meanings attached to such work influence and are influenced by the social definition of the bodies involved. In Ashcraft’s (2013) terms, occupations come to appear ‘by nature’ as possessed of central, enduring and distinctive characteristics that make them suited to certain groups and less suitable for others. Work involving physical taint through proximity to dirt may accordingly be seen as ‘suitable’ for working class men—with the implication that a full understanding of how such work is experienced and encountered needs to take into account the embodied identity (e.g. based on gender, class, race) of the worker. Our aim therefore is to present a more complex and nuanced account of physical tainted work, highlighting the significance of material conditions and embodied identity characteristics of workers and how these can act to both support and constrain processes of meaning making. Such an undertaking has, we suggest, significance for approaches to, and understandings of, experiences of dirty work more generally.

A Theory of Practice

We draw on Bourdieu’s (1977) theory of practice and on his tripartite interrelationship of habitus, capital and field to enable a focus on these embodied dimensions. While ‘narrowly classified’ (Swartz 1997) by some as a social reproduction theorist, his broad range of conceptual thinking draws attention to the generative potential embedded in the relation between culture, social conditions and power. In particular, he shows how particular (e.g. class- and gender-based) dispositions become embodied within the ‘habitus’ as a system of embodied dispositions (i.e. identity formations), perceptions and values and how this, in turn, generates practices that can serve to reproduce social inequalities, social hierarchy and power distribution effects. Together with levels of capital (e.g. social, cultural, symbolic), the embodied and ‘lasting disposable dispositions’ (Bourdieu 1990) of the habitus delineate potential positions and practices that are rendered meaningful within particular contexts or ‘fields’. Here, Bourdieu (1984, 1990) conceives of a working class habitus based on attitudes and values that are ‘anchored’ on the body and which form a ‘mark’ of social position and social difference—where that social location inculcates a set of tastes and perceptions (Bourdieu 1990). The body is both a materialisation of class and reveals the ‘deepest dispositions’ of the habitus where working class bodies often carry symbolic value through strength and physical competence. Social conditions and dominant power relations of the ‘field’ therefore produce lived traditions, practices and values where, as Charlesworth (2000) highlights, the ‘realization of a life course’ and feelings of constraint in terms of what is seen as possible or achievable come to be framed.

While taking into account individuals’ capacities to act as agents, Bourdieu acknowledges that they do so within a field that moulds them. Action therefore flows as ‘compromised outcomes’ from the intersection of habitus with capital and field positions (Swartz 1997). As Bourdieu argues, through the habitus and determined in part by socialisation and earlier experiences, certain dispositions for action are ‘stamped’ onto our bodies, for example, through gesture, movement and comportment. The habitus is accordingly an aspect of our life story and identity, shaping individual action to the extent that opportunity structures from the field are perpetuated as chances of success or failure are internalised in action. In other words, a specific habitus associated with a particular field—its opportunity structures and cultural constraints—becomes internalised, entering bodies to become part of identity. This perspective therefore offers potential to examine the ‘field’ of dirty work as a system of relations—its constraints and opportunity structures—and how this shapes and is shaped by a particular set of embodied dispositions that make up the habitus. Through this lens, we seek to foreground an embodied notion of dirty work that moves away from a dominant emphasis on descriptors of task or role as well as on ideological constructions around the work to include the significance of dirt as matter, the embodied dispositions of the worker, and the generation of material practices—in other words an approach that can allow consideration of the material and the discursive within an empirical setting. As such, we hope to go some way in setting out a new terrain for understanding physically tainted work.

The Neglect of Dirty Work in Organisation Studies

As Ashforth and Kreiner (1999) contend, dirty work has been neglected in organisation studies—though some recent accounts indicate a renewed interest in the area. For example, an edited book (Dirty Work: Concepts and Identities) published by two of the authors in 2012 contains chapters from researchers involved in a variety of settings including hospital wards, magazine culture, telephone sex work, investment banking, and migrant workers in the UK. Nevertheless, as Bolton and Houlihan argue, dirty work occupations have routinely been overlooked in contemporary accounts of work experiences through the predominant promotion of ‘modern’ work as ‘virtual, clean and value adding’ (Bolton and Houlihan 2009: 3). ‘Good work’ not only signifies the absence of proximity to dirt, but routinely offers intrinsic rewards such as job satisfaction, engagement and opportunity for career advancement (Simpson et al. 2012). As Bolton (2007) points out, while there is concern among policymakers about widening divisions in the labour market, they continue to propose and focus on a narrow vision of clean, high-skilled and ‘better’ work.

Following the above, and while acknowledging the contribution of more recent accounts, this book seeks to address a neglect within organisation studies of the experiences of forms of labour that can be identified as dirty work (Ashforth and Kreiner 1999)—a gap that is surprising given, from recent literature (e.g. Ashforth et al. 2007), a growing significance of such work in the contemporary labour market including paid caring (Anderson 2000), domestic work and low-level services (Noon and Blyton 2007), and night-time work driven by the 24 hour economy (Hobbs 2003)—as well as of areas of work performed by migrant labour (Lee-Treweek 2012).

This neglect may reflect the invisible nature of some forms of dirty work (Simpson et al. 2012) in that such work can be spatially absent—undertaken in private homes, such as care workers or domestic cleaners, or in ‘backspaces’ that are out of sight. Butchers, for example, undertake the messy work of cutting up carcasses at the back of the shop while the front, public area has ‘clean’, prepared meat on display. Dirty work can also be temporally concealed through night-time work or work involving unsocial hours (e.g. early morning sweeping of the streets), often undertaken by marginalised groups. Further, from our study, dirty workers could be visible and yet still ‘unseen’. Thus, while refuse collectors and street cleaners are highly visible in the luminous, bright yellow uniforms of the manual worker, they are rarely afforded recognition by members of the public in the form of eye contact or an early morning greeting. In fact, in many cases, the public behaved as if the men themselves were simply not there (e.g. dropping litter in front of a street cleaner on a just swept street). Given the priority afforded to ‘clean’ work as referred to above, dirty work (and the workers) may therefore be largely invisible and characterised as having low cultural priority—‘unseen’ in public and policy discourses.

This focus on clean, value-adding work has contributed, arguably, to a dominant, ‘elitist’ view of work experiences in the form of ‘careers’. These...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontmatter
• 1. Gender, Class and Occupation: Introduction
• 1. Theories and Concepts: Dirt, Gender and Class
• 2. Occupational Contexts
• Backmatter