‘We Can Win this Fight Together’: Memory and Cross‐Occupational Coordination

Abstract

While scholars have studied coordination across occupational lines, they have yet to theorize how the memories held by those involved in such coordination might influence it. In this paper, we frame occupational groups as mnemonic communities – collectives for whom a shared understanding of the past constitutes their character – to explore the role of memory in cross‐occupational coordination (COC). Through qualitative analysis of a South Korean broadcasting company in which COC emerged for the purpose of collective action, we develop a theory of cross‐occupational mnemonic (dis)unity. Our findings suggest that, initially, cross‐occupational relational memories (i.e., memories occupations held of themselves, other occupations and their relationships) constrained COC as they maintained occupational divides. However, one occupation's efforts to downplay these memories, coupled with an event experienced and remembered across occupational lines, resulted in COC by producing a cross‐occupational mnemonic community. These findings extend research at the intersection of occupations and memory by theorizing the mutability of occupational groups, perhaps the most prominent intra‐organizational mnemonic communities.