RT Article
T1 ‘Lower than a Snake’s Belly’: Discursive Constructions of Dignity and Heroism in Low-Status Garbage Work
JF Journal of business ethics
VO 156
IS 4
SP 889
OP 901
A1 Hamilton, Peter
A1 Redman, Tom
A1 McMurray, Robert
A2 Redman, Tom
A2 McMurray, Robert
LA English
YR 2019
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1785669028
AB In this paper, we consider how dignity is discursively constructed in the context of work dominated by physicality and dirt. Based on semi-structured interviews with garbage workers, our analysis considers how the deprivations they experience are cast through discourses intended to construct their individual and collective worth. We consider the manner in which dignity maybe denied to such workers through popular repudiations of individuality and status. We demonstrate how this positioning arises from contact with physical dirt, and associations with socially dirty work based on ascriptions of servility, abuse and ambivalence. We go on to consider how garbage workers respond to this positioning through discourses of ‘everyday heroism’. Heroism is evoked through three inter-related narratives that speaks to a particular type of masculinity. The first takes the form of a classic process of reframing and recalibration through which workers not only renegotiate their public position and status, but also point to the inherent value to be had in working with dirt as part of that which we identify as a process of ‘affirmation’. The second narrative arises from the imposition of favourable social and occupational comparisons that effectively elevate garbage collectors’ social position. The third discourse—and previously unobserved in respect of garbage work—centres on paternalistic practices of care. Combined, these discourses disrupt the generally held view that dirty work is antithetical to heroism and wounds dignity.
K1 Stratification
K1 Heroism occupation
K1 Hierarchy
K1 Garbage collectors
K1 Esteem
K1 Dirty work
K1 Dignity
K1 Autonomy
DO 10.1007/s10551-017-3618-z