Class in construction: London building workers, dirty work and physical cultures¹

Abstract

Descriptions of manual employment tend to ignore its diversity and overstate the homogenizing effects of technology and industrialization. Based on ethnographic research on a London construction site, building work was found to be shaped by the forms of a pre-industrial work pattern characterized by task autonomy and freedom from managerial control. The builders' identities were largely free from personal identification as working class, and collective identification was fractured by trade status, and ethnic and gender divisions. Yet the shadow of a class-based discursive symbolism, which centered partly on the division of minds/bodies, mental/manual, and clean/dirty work, framed their accounts, identities and cultures. The builders displayed what is frequently termed working-class culture, and it was highly masculine. This physical and bodily-centered culture shielded them from the possible stigmatization of class and provided them with a source of localized capital. 'Physical capital' in conjunction with social capital (the builders' networks of friends and family) had largely guided their position in the stratification system, and values associated with these forms of capital were paramount to their public cultures. This cultural emphasis offered a continuing functionality in the builders' lives, not having broken free from tradition or becoming an object of reflexive choice.

Sacrifice and distinction in dirty work: men’s construction of meaning in the butcher trade

“…Rather, meaning is sought through work as a whole e.g. through the avoidance of unemployment and the effort, strength and physical skill demanded (Willis, 1977;Connell, 2000;Wray-Bliss and Parker, 1998) as well as through a sense of camaraderie and shared bravado or 'shop floor humour' (Collinson, 1988)-reflective, potentially, of a worldly realism (Charlesworth, 2000) and of a 'continuing functionality' (Thiel, 2007) in working men's lives.…”

“…Physical competence, prized within the norms and values of traditional working class masculinity (Willis, 1977;Connell, 2000;MacDowell, 2003) therefore gives meaning to work through dignity and respect as well as through endurance and acceptance of work's conditions (Sennett and Cobb, 1972;Skeggs, 2004aConnell, 2000Thiel, 2007). At the same time, while it was universally rejected as unsuitable for children (too arduous, too constraining), the work was valued for providing a living wage and support for families -particularly the opportunity given by a regular income to sons and daughters in pursuing their chosen careers (many of whom were educated to university level and had white collar jobs).…”

“…In so doing, we contribute to literatures on meanings associated with 'dirty work' -types of labour that have hitherto been neglected in organizational research (Ashforth and Kreiner, 1999;Ashforth et al, 2007) as well as to understandings of current manifestations of working class masculinity (e.g. Charlesworth, 2000;McDowell, 2003;Thiel, 2007) an area that has been largely invisible within contemporary accounts of work and organizations (Gregg and Wadsworth, 2003;Nixon, 2009;Skeggs, 2004a;McDowell, 2003).…”

Contextualizing dirty work: The neglected role of cultural, historical, and demographic context

“…For instance, Thiel (2007) discusses how notions of (white) working-class masculinity helped normalize the physical taint of British construction jobs; Mendez (1998) As alluded to above regarding Thompson's (2010) study of Latino lettuce pickers, the danger of having particular categories of socioeconomic status, gender, and racioethnicity cluster in low-prestige dirty work is that the clustering may come to seem normal and expected to insiders and outsiders alike. And this danger is only abetted by normalizing ideologies that provide explanations for the clustering.…”

Bodies, building and bricks: Women architects and builders in eight eco-communities in Argentina, Britain, Spain, Thailand and USA

“…Of those women working in the construction trades in the USA the majority worked as wallpaper hangers and woodworkers -interior (and often inferior) craft roles (Menches andAbraham, 2007, Ness, 2012). Despite class and ethnicity becoming less important in construction industries in recent years, gender stubbornly remains a marker of division (Thiel, 2007(Thiel, , 2013Datta and Brickell, 2009). …”