Dramas of Dignity

Cleaners in the Corporate Underworld of Berlin

Jana Costas

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781108475846
• eBook ISBN:
  9781108698078
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Organisational Behaviour
• Index: Business

Looking beyond the shiny surface of Potsdamer Platz, a designer micro-city within Berlin's city center, this book goes behind-the-scenes with the cleaners who pick up cigarette butts from sidewalks, scrape chewing gum from marble floors, wipe coffee stains from office desks and scrub public toilets, long before white-collar workers, consumers and tourists enter the complex. It follows Costas's journey to a large yet hidden, four-level deep corporate underworld below Potsdamer Platz. There, Costas discovers how cleaners' attitudes to work are much less straightforward than the public perceptions of cleaning as degrading work would suggest. Cleaners turn to their work for dignity yet find it elusive. The book explores how these cleaners' dramas of dignity unfold in interactions with co-workers, management, clients and the public. The book will appeal to students and academics in the fields of organisational theory, organisational behavior, organisation studies, sociology, social anthropology, cultural studies and urban studies.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title page
• Copyright information
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Below Potsdamer Platz: Introduction to the Minus Area
• 1 The Corporate Micro-city Potsdamer Platz: Cleaners' Presence from Below
• 2 Characters from the Corporate Underworld: Alex, Ali, Luisa and Marcel
• 3 From Feces to Flowers: The Sweat, Shame, Disgust, Pride and Fun of Working with Dirt
• 4 Separate in the Same Boat: Others and Allies among the Cleaners
• 5 When Worlds Collide: Cleaners at Work in the Upperworld
• 6 ''Back to the Dark Side'': Cleaners' Tactics against Surveillance
• Leaving the Minus Area Behind
• Postscript
• Appendix
• References
• Index