Hefted: reconfiguring work, value and mobility in the UK Lake district

Abstract

The ways in which financial value is produced by organisations through highly mobile products and services is increasingly contested by recognition of the more-than-financial aspects of valuation practices, particularly within discussions on the quality or moral value of work experiences and the dignity of workers. The terms of this debate are complicated by considering the role of nonhuman animals within work and commercial value creation, a subject which is frequently overlooked despite the significance of animal contributions to labour and manufacture. We generate new insights to valuation by reflecting on the mobility of nonhumans. Drawing on the Herdwick sheep breed of the Cumbrian upland fells, we illustrate how the image and narrative of these sheep is enrolled and mobilised to add value not only to Herdwick products but to human work. We highlight how the shepherding process of hefting, or the concept of establishing a deep-rooted connection between sheep and place stands in contrast to dominant logics of speed and efficiency in the agricultural sector and is employed as a script to overcome a devaluation of the worker in this mountainous and isolated region.

“How did they protect you?” The lived experience of race and gender in the post‐colonial English university

“…Ethnographers of the academy have examined depression (Campbell, 2018; Jago, 2002), linguistic difference (D’Souza & Pal, 2018), decolonization (Dennis, 2018; Webster & John, 2010), whiteness (Allen & Liou, 2018) and the intersection of race and gender (Gabriel & Tate, 2017; Liu, 2018; Tate, 2016). Outside academia, ethnography has provided insights into work and organization practices such as leadership (Jaumier, 2017; Schauster, 2015), culture (Mauksch, 2017), the role of non‐human actors (Bruni, 2005; Mitchell & Hamilton, 2018) and precarious employment (Brannan, 2015; Grenier, 2015).…”

More‐than‐human emotions: Multispecies emotional labour in the tourism industry

“…Nonhuman animals are routinely exploited and subjected to normalised and institutionalised violence, especially in food production, although not all work by, with and for animals is harmful. Animal suffering and human suffering in organisations often go together, with people employed in low-paid, low status positions in direct contact with nonhuman animals also often experiencing marginalisation and poor conditions (Hamilton & McCabe, 2016;Coulter, 2017;Mitchell & Hamilton, 2018). Coulter (2016) suggests a continuum between enjoyment and suffering in work, calling for more 'humane jobs' that are good for both people and animals, and this involves recognising nonhuman animals as workers within organisations.…”

“…Theories are broadly posthuman where they "challenge human exceptionalism, posit that human-nonhuman relations/relationships emerge temporally, and/or demonstrate how what we ontologically understand as 'human' is really a complex relation with other species" (Lloro-Bodart, 2017: 113). From Clarke and Knights' (2018) consideration of how 'anthropocentric masculinities', performed within the context of veterinary practice, marginalise both nonhumans and female humans, to Sage et al's (2016) consideration of human-animal boundary work and organising, to Mitchell and Hamilton's (2018) consideration of the roles that sheep play in actor-networks in the English Lake District, organizational researchers are becoming alert to the possibilities and opportunities that morethan-human perspectives can open up for understanding organisational lives, processes and practices.…”

Guest editorial

“…and sharing of food acknowledges the affordances and interactions which inhere in a "heftedness"a learned belonging (Mitchell and Hamilton, 2018) to the land. What is novel for Sjölander-Lindqvist, Skoglund and Laven in their paper -Craft beer: building social terroir through connecting people, place and businessis the way in which what they term social terroir becomes a critical ingredient in the production of craft beer.…”