2020
DOI: 10.3167/sa.2020.640305
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Transformation and the Satisfaction of Work

Abstract: This article suggests a new conceptual framework for understanding why some types of work are experienced in more satisfying ways than others. The analysis is based on research in an Indian scrap metal yard, where work entails disassembling things that other people no longer want. In spite of the demanding conditions of the labor and the social stigma attached to it, employees express satisfaction with the work process. This observation raises questions about theories of labor, which see satisfaction as arisin… Show more

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Cited by 7 publications
(4 citation statements)
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References 53 publications
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“…Moreover, "it would be a waste not to buy such a nice car and put it together," said Pan Všemohoucí. Beyond this is the deep satisfaction and pure joy stemming from seeing a repaired vehicle that was previously labelled a total loss; this is similar to the scrap metal yard workers' satisfaction arising from work that is creative, skilled, and based on transformation (Sanchez 2020), or the enjoyment and pleasure involved in the second-hand practices described by Gregson and Crewe (2003), or the joy of unexpected finds among landfill workers observed by Reno (2016, pp. 98−135) or Sosna (2022, in press).…”
Section: Informally Formalmentioning
confidence: 77%
“…Moreover, "it would be a waste not to buy such a nice car and put it together," said Pan Všemohoucí. Beyond this is the deep satisfaction and pure joy stemming from seeing a repaired vehicle that was previously labelled a total loss; this is similar to the scrap metal yard workers' satisfaction arising from work that is creative, skilled, and based on transformation (Sanchez 2020), or the enjoyment and pleasure involved in the second-hand practices described by Gregson and Crewe (2003), or the joy of unexpected finds among landfill workers observed by Reno (2016, pp. 98−135) or Sosna (2022, in press).…”
Section: Informally Formalmentioning
confidence: 77%
“…If I apply that understanding to the experience of being an anthropologist, then I find that although there is plenty to complain about in an academic career, the work is nonetheless still satisfying (Sanchez, 2022). Satisfying work processes are based on an ethic of transformation (Sanchez, 2020). I spend my academic working life sifting through data and transforming my confusion into understanding.…”
Section: Generational Warmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…In the context of Argentina, Lazar (2017) studies how political ethics, subjectivities, and philosophies of union workers emerge out of a specific political economy of class struggle, labour histories of political activism, and the network of kin and other social relations within and beyond the unions. Tied to specific regimes of value production and market exchange, the workers’ sense of self and worldviews are simultaneously created and transformed (Sanchez 2020). Focusing specifically on the work of selling, in a special issue of Ethnos on ‘anthropology for sale’, Cross and Heslop (2019) centre market transaction as an ethnographic moment ‘embedded’ in gender, caste, class, and kinship, wherein salespeople emerge as moral actors reflecting on their work identity, their saleswork, and its ethical ambivalences.…”
Section: Ordinary Ethics and The Realm Of Confirmationmentioning
confidence: 99%