Puzzling Skills: Feminist Political Economy Approaches

Abstract

Je m'appuie sur l'économie politique féministe pour argumenter qu'il nous faut changer notre approche. Au lieu de nous concentrer sur les structures du travail axées sur la déqualification et le contrôle de la maind'œuvre ou sur les individus et leur apprentissage formel, nous devons nous interroger sur les conditions qui empêchent les individus d'acquérir et d'utiliser les compétences voulues et réfléchir aux différents moyens de tenir compte du facteur temps dans la façon d'évaluer les compétences. Notre article se veut d'abord une intervention théorique dans le débat sur les compétences, mais qui prend racine dans une préoccupation très concrète : les compétences requises dans le domaine des soins de santé. Using a feminist political economy lens, I argue that there is a need to change how we approach skills in political economy. Instead of focusing solely on labor processes that deskill and limit control (as much of the rich political economy literature does, in this journal and elsewhere), or on individualized formal learning (as much of the management literature does), we need to ask what prevents people from developing and using the skills they need for their work, and how time can be factored into skill assessment. The argument is theoretical, but grows out of a practical concern with skills in health care.

Home Care Workers’ Skills in the Context of Task Shifting: Complexities in Care Work

“…In her feminist political economy approach, Armstrong () conceptualizes skills as contingent, social constructions—rather than objective capacities—shaped by economic, social, and structural forces. Armstrong () outlines seven “tensions in approaches to skill” (pp. 258–267) to articulate how conditions and contexts of work, as well as gender, race, and class relations, impact on workers’ capacity to develop and use skills.…”

“…The first tension is the difference between the individual and the job, with a need “to consider whether the focus is on the skills of the person doing the work or the skills required to do the job” (Armstrong :259). While workers are typically thought to possess the appropriate skills for their work, in reality there may be mismatches between a worker's skills and job requirements, and between the status and remuneration of a particular job and the skills that the work requires.…”

“…Fifth is the distinction between routine and complex skills. The assumption that highly routinized work requires few skills might obscure the “considerable and difficult learning” sometimes required “to work quickly and without conscious thought” (Armstrong :264). Sixth is the difference between visible and invisible skills, closely related to the distinction between hard and soft skills.…”

“…In this article, we explore the effects of task shifting on HCWs’ skills, in order to advance sociological understandings of care work. We engage a feminist political approach that Pat Armstrong recently presented in this journal, where she calls for sociologists of work to move beyond studying “the labour processes that deskill” and to devote more attention to the conditions in which workers gain and use skills (Armstrong :258). Armstrong () suggests that processes like downward substitution involve complexities and tensions that shape the meaning and value of skills.…”

The Institutional Practice

“…Removed from a commonsensical understanding of the nursing home, then, we can construct dichotomies or tensions, to which nursing homes are invariably connected, conceptually and in everyday practice. Constructing dichotomies or tensions can be a productive analytical undertaking, in part because they are seldom presented as such (Armstrong 2013), thus emphasizing that which is contested within a given field (Bourdieu 2012). Such tensions, for our purposes, are not simply theoretical constructs, but also constitute a framework for agents operating within the nursing home; caring staff are constantly and continuously torn between opposing interests, values and ideologies.…”