Class, Control, and Relational Indignity

Crowley, Martha

doi:10.1177/0002764213503335

Cited by 43 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 52 publications

(86 reference statements)

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“…Analysts of dignity at work have tended to focus on the structural conditions that produce indignity, and treat overt “resistance,” collective or individualized, as a major strategy for handling it (Crowley ; Hodson ; Rogers ; Schwartz ). Drawing from Marx's theory of alienation (Marx and Engels ), in which he argued that workers suffered because of their inability to control relations of production, much of this scholarship has shown that forms of control (e.g., technical or direct) and general forms of work (industrial, clerical) are major sources of indignity.…”

Section: Workfare Kitchens and The Management Of Affectmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Drawing from Marx's theory of alienation (Marx and Engels ), in which he argued that workers suffered because of their inability to control relations of production, much of this scholarship has shown that forms of control (e.g., technical or direct) and general forms of work (industrial, clerical) are major sources of indignity. The kind of direct control that operates in a kitchen, Crowley () and Hodson () show, is a major source of humiliation and indignity at work. Work speed is also a critical source of indignity, not only on the assembly line, but in complex service jobs where interactions between people, material things, workspaces, and machines make fast delivery almost impossible (Van Oort ).…”

Section: Workfare Kitchens and The Management Of Affectmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dignity Strategies in a Neoliberal Workfare Kitchen Training Program

Wilcoxson

Moore

2019

Sociological Inquiry

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Welfare‐to‐work training (workfare) programs are designed to technically and affectively prepare marginalized people for jobs that are often routinized and dirty. They are expected to accept personal responsibility for their situation and demonstrate submission to bosses as means of “working off” their “debt” to society. Ethnographic observation at workfare training sites has tended to emphasize the indignities that trainees suffer, with less attention to how workers maintain dignity in the face of these experiences. Using ethnographic observation and interviews in a Chicago workfare kitchen training program, we show that neoliberal kitchen training work encompasses paradoxical expectations for trainee‐workers; they must demonstrate high levels of discretion and creativity required in professional kitchen work and demonstrate submission to charismatic authority as a means of getting kitchen work done and of affective compliance with the goals of the program. To combat the direct efforts of others to produce indignities, trainees developed two dignity strategies that are highly dependent on the structure of kitchen work: operating in a slipstream, and banking confidence that allows them to take liberties normally allowed for chef‐trainers. These findings contribute to sociological understandings of workplace dignity, a privilege that has been especially elusive for the poor under welfare‐to‐work programs.

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Section: Workfare Kitchens and The Management Of Affectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Workfare Kitchens and The Management Of Affectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dignity Strategies in a Neoliberal Workfare Kitchen Training Program

Wilcoxson

Moore

2019

Sociological Inquiry

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“…While some researchers position autonomy as the ability to exert control over one's own work domain (e.g., Crowley, 2014;Hodson, 2001), here we take Sayer's (2007) definition-to have control over one's life and for others to refrain from colonizing that life and to keep a respectful distance. While some researchers position autonomy as the ability to exert control over one's own work domain (e.g., Crowley, 2014;Hodson, 2001), here we take Sayer's (2007) definition-to have control over one's life and for others to refrain from colonizing that life and to keep a respectful distance.…”

Section: Autonomy Violationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The second major dignity threat LGBTQ employees experienced was autonomy violations centring on employees' gender and sexuality. While some researchers position autonomy as the ability to exert control over one's own work domain (e.g., Crowley, 2014;Hodson, 2001), here we take Sayer's (2007) definition-to have control over one's life and for others to refrain from colonizing that life and to keep a respectful distance. In this sense, autonomy is also intrinsically linked to privacy.…”

Section: Autonomy Violationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is it safe to bring myself to work? Understanding LGBTQ experiences of workplace dignity

Baker

Lucas

2017

Can J Adm Sci

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Despite increased efforts by more organizations to be seen as "gay-friendly," workplaces remain challenging sites for LGBTQ employees to navigate. We examine the ways in which LGBTQ employees experience dignity threats in the workplace and the protection strategies they use to deflect those threats. Interviews with 36 LGBTQ working adults revealed that their dignity is threatened by a range of identitysensitive inequalities that undermine their safety and security when they claim authentic gendered/sexual identities. Specific safety and security threats to dignity include social harm, autonomy violations, career harm, and physical harm. To (re)claim their dignity, they engage in four primary dignity protection strategies: avoiding harm by seeking safe spaces, deflecting harm with sexual identity management, offsetting identity devaluations by emphasizing instrumental value, and creating safe spaces for authenticity and dignity.

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“…The bulk of empirical research on workplace bullying focuses mostly on "who does what to whom; when, where, [and] why" (Einarsen et al 2003, p. 9) and primarily analyzes individual level data (Berlingieri 2015;Neall and Tuckey 2014;Rainey and Melzer 2019). It emphasizes the importance of individual and job characteristics such as autonomy (Crowley 2014;Einarsen et al 1994) or individual competence level (McDaniel et al 2015), which are protective resources against workplace bullying. Among job demands, psychological stress, and physical demands (Hauge et al 2007;Hauge et al 2011), working with machines and routine work have proven to be associated with higher levels of workplace bullying (Crowley 2014;Einarsen et al 1994).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Individual Involvement with Digitalized Work and Digitalization at the Workplace Level Impacts Supervisory and Coworker Bullying in German Workplaces

Melzer

Diewald

2020

Social Sciences

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Digitalized work has gained importance across industrialized countries. Simultaneously, research investigating the consequences of digitalized work for workplace relations among employees, supervisors, and coworkers, such as workplace bullying, is largely missing. This study is, to the best of our knowledge, the first to investigate how digitalized work influences supervisory and coworker bullying dependent on individual, job, and workplace characteristics. We use representative linked-employer-employee data from 3612 employees located in 100 large workplaces in Germany across all industrial sectors and apply random effects multilevel linear analyses. Individual involvement in digitalized work is related to less supervisory bullying for all employees, and for lower qualified employees to less coworker bullying. At the workplace level, when digitalization has advanced, supervisory bullying increases for highly qualified employees. Neither the individual nor the workplace effects of digitalization are explained by mediating factors such as job autonomy, routine or machine work, competency, or psychological or physical stress. Competence and job autonomy prevent the occurrence of bullying, while routine work, psychological stress, and physically demanding work are positively related to bullying. All effects are more pronounced for supervisory bullying than for coworker bullying. Individual involvement with digitalized work seems to change relational dynamics within workplaces and to protect employees from bullying. For highly qualified employees, this is probably related to the gathering of key competencies; for lower qualified employees, it might be linked to working with digital devices. In workplaces where digitalization has progressed, digitalized work may disrupt and change the established work processes and relations and increase the necessity for new coordination and, thus, the occurrence of conflicts.

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Class, Control, and Relational Indignity

Cited by 43 publications

References 52 publications

Dignity Strategies in a Neoliberal Workfare Kitchen Training Program

Dignity Strategies in a Neoliberal Workfare Kitchen Training Program

Is it safe to bring myself to work? Understanding LGBTQ experiences of workplace dignity

How Individual Involvement with Digitalized Work and Digitalization at the Workplace Level Impacts Supervisory and Coworker Bullying in German Workplaces

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