Craft as work–life unity: The careers of skilled working‐class men and their sons and grandsons after deindustrialization

Abstract

This article focuses on the enduring significance of craft in the careers of Kent Royal Dockyard craftworkers and their sons and grandsons after deindustrialization. The closure of this naval shipbuilding and repair yard together with the subsequent move to post‐industrial employment did not end men's engagement with their craft practices. Instead, this developed into a ‘craft outlook’ defined by a motivation for performing actualizing labour that interwove paid and non‐paid work. Men's careers did not become individualized projects of self as collaborative intergenerational practices gave a long‐term narrative to their careers and lives. Therefore, three contributions are proposed to the literature on working‐class male careers and craft. First, an analytical framework is advanced that empirically distinguishes a ‘craft outlook’ from traditional manual trade employment. Second, a craft outlook reflected ‘whole life careers’ that were constructed from both paid and non‐paid work. Third, the concept of ‘human imprint’ is developed to recognize the generational affirmation produced by the transmission of craft practices.

Social Class and Work: A Review and Organizing Framework

“…Second, qualitative work within sociology has considered identity construction and communication. Scholars have examined the use of class symbols and values to construct and communicate class identity by women in a rural town (Yodanis, 2002), the discourses adopted by female door bouncers navigating gendered and classed occupational identities (Rickett & Roman, 2013), the interlocking and negotiation of women’s multiple identities in hotel work (Adib & Guerrier, 2003), and the identity construction of working-class men engaged in craftwork (Ackers, 2018). Across these studies, research highlighted the ways that gender intersects with social class as individuals construct their identity through their work.…”

Bringing “Class” into the Classroom: Addressing Social Class Privilege Through Management Education

“…Consideration of how social identities interlock to create complex inequalities is necessary to understand how privilege and disadvantage operate at an individual, interpersonal, and structural or societal level (Holvino, 2008). While outside the scope of this paper, we encourage future scholarship that begins to translate the ever-growing, important empirical work in this area (e.g., Ackers, 2018; Damaske, 2019; Doshi, 2021; Gray et al, 2018; Ruiz Castro & Holvino, 2016; Wasserman & Frenkel, 2015) into classroom practices and resources.…”

The ‘dual tension’ created by negotiating upward social mobility and habitus: A generational study of skilled working-class men, their sons and grandsons following deindustrialization

“…To explore how deindustrialization was affecting intergenerational male identities, this study only interviewed men. As a result, this research cannot comment on how social mobility is experienced in relationships between female or mixed familial kin such as father–daughter relationships (for a more in depth discussion of this topic, see Ackers, 2014, 2019). Rather, this study is restricted to discussing fathers’, sons’ and grandsons’ generational negotiation of social mobility.…”

“…This practice seemed to allow sons and grandsons to reduce relational class conflict as DIY acted as a demonstration that their economic mobility had not resulted in them becoming ‘pretentious’ or ‘individualistic’ members of the middle-class (unlike in Sennett and Cobbs, 1977; Skeggs, 1997). As Chris Copper reflected, ‘We’ve always been a hands-on, practical people; if I didn’t know how to do it, I’d ask dad.’ This quote reflects how the practice of DIY provided a bridge to the families collective working-class values and as a result reduced a ‘habitus clivé’ (Friedman, 2016) from developing between the generations (for more detail on men’s DIY project see Ackers, 2019). The most sophisticated instances of ‘authentication’ were made by the two men who went to university.…”