Beyond the symbolic: a relational approach to dirty work through a study of refuse collectors and street cleaners

Abstract

Drawing on a relational approach and based on an ethnographic study of street cleaners and refuse collectors, we redress a tendency towards an over-emphasis on the discursive by exploring the coconstitution of the material and symbolic dynamics of dirt. We show how esteem-enhancing strategies that draw on the symbolic can be both supported and undermined by the physicality of dirt, and how relations of power are rooted in subordinating material conditions. Through employing Hardy and Thomas's (2015) taxonomy of objects, practice, bodies and space, we develop a fuller understanding of how the symbolic and material are fundamentally entwined within dirty work, and suggest that a neglect of the latter might foster a false optimism regarding worker experiences.

‘Lower than a Snake’s Belly’: Discursive Constructions of Dignity and Heroism in Low-Status Garbage Work

“…This was the case even though they recognised that much of their job was unpleasant. Here, we 'Lower than a Snake's Belly': Discursive Constructions of Dignity and Heroism in Low-Status… stress that this is not to suggest neither that we should not emphasise the materiality of their physical taint (Hughes et al 2017) nor forego a progressive form of politics and social policy that seeks to improve workers' experience. Instead it is suggesting that in relation to Sayer's (2007b) contrast between terms that are usually positively and negatively related to dignity, the garbage collectors' talk suggests that experiencing dignity does not necessarily entail neat binaries or an erosion of the negative terms.…”

“…While there has been growing interest in the labour of garbage collectors (most recently Simpson et al 2014a;Slutskaya et al 2016;Hughes et al 2017) particularly in relation to conceptions of dirt, they are, as Ashworth and Kreiner (1999) originally pointed out, a relatively underexplored occupational grouping. As compared to the volumes written on middle managers, company executives and organisational leaders, there is a nascent literature on garbage workers.…”

“…Following on from related occupational studies by Simpson et al (2014a), Slutskaya et al (2016) and Hughes et al (2017), we explore the experiences of what is perhaps the least outwardly 'heroic' job: garbage collection. Where doctors and firefighters are associated with saving lives and soldiers speak to bravery, the garbage collector is charged with handling the waste of other people.…”

“Embodying” dirty work: A review of the literature

“…Influenced by Mary Douglas's () seminal work on the symbolic dimensions of dirt—seen as “disorder” and as “matter out of place”—much of the literature on dirty work has adopted a socially constructionist perspective where dirt is seen as “in the eyes of the beholder,” subject to particular perceptions and contingencies. This focuses on the meanings afforded to dirt based on different perceptions of how it has, in Douglas's terms, “violated” a cultural order, rather than on the possession of any essential attribute (Hughes, Simpson, Slutskaya, Simpson, & Hughes, ). Cleanliness and dirt therefore are seen as having a social and moral, rather than material, significance.…”

“…Physically tainted work may involve contact with defiled matter (bodily fluids, grime, and waste) that is rendered offensive in bodily terms through smell and touch. Blood and offal can become lodged under the fingernails of butchers arousing disgust on the part of family members (Simpson et al, ) while refuse collectors must shower to remove the smells accumulated through repeated contact with waste during the course of the day (Hughes et al, ).…”