Privileging Passion: How the Cultural Logic of Work Perpetuates Social Inequality in the Craft Beer Industry

Abstract

Having or “finding” passion for work has become an increasingly common cultural logic of work today, one that workers use to justify career choices and managers use to make hiring decisions. However, scholars have yet to articulate how workers enact this cultural logic of work in ways that may ultimately contribute to social inequality in modern workplaces. On the basis of 115 in-depth interviews and two years of ethnographic fieldwork in U.S. craft breweries, the author shows how brewery workers express a heightened relationship to their jobs, which the author calls pure passion, in ways that encompass labor, consumption, and lifestyle practices. Yet because these enactments of pure passion are predicated on privileged social attributes with respect to race, class, and gender, this cultural logic of work ends up reinforcing the dominant position of white, middle-class men in this industry while simultaneously marginalizing the experiences of women and people of color.

A Potential Pitfall of Passion: Passion is Associated with Performance Overconfidence

“…As a result, while passion may generally lead both men and women, or individuals from higher and lower socioeconomic status, to be seen in more favorable ways by others, these effects may be smaller for women and lower social class individuals because their overconfidence may be seen as violating expectations of communality (e.g., Campbell & Hahl, 2022;Eagly & Wood, 2011). We encourage future research to consider whether and how the benefits of passion systematically vary among members of some groups over others in ways that may perpetuate inequality (Cech, 2021;Siy et al, 2023;Wilson, 2022).…”

The Growth in Demand for Craft Beer and the Proliferation of Microbreweries in Slovenia

“…Additionally, at least five of these breweries have joint ownership with husbands or male partners. In Wilson's [83] study, it is demonstrated that brewery workers display a heightened connection to their jobs, referred to as "pure passion", which encompasses various aspects such as labour, consumption, and lifestyle practices. However, these expressions of pure passion are rooted in privileged social attributes related to race, class, and gender.…”