Deindustrialisation and the Historical Sociological Imagination: Making Sense of Work and Industrial Change

Following recent calls for a more self-aware and historically-sensitive sociology this article reflects on the concept of deindustrialisation and industrial change in this spirit. Using E.P. Thompson’s classic The Making of The English Working Class and his examination of industrialising culture with its stress on experience, the article asks how these insights might be of value in understanding contemporary processes of deindustrialisation and work. Drawing on a range of sociological, cultural and literary studies writers it conceptualises the differences and similarities between two historic moments of industrial change and loss. In particular it draws on the literary concept of the ‘half-life of deindustrialisation’ to explore these periods. The paper has important implications for how we think about contemporary and historical industrial decline

Sociological Futures and the Sociology of Work

This essay is a response to the call for a discussion about future trends in sociology by focusing broadly on the sub-discipline of work and employment. In doing so the piece directly engages with earlier interventions made by John Scott (2005) and Gayle Letherby (2005) in Sociological Research Online. It examines the current state of the sociology of work by charting its foundation and subsequent development. It suggests that there is currently a problem in the area caused in part by intellectual trends and fragmentation. It argues that those sociologists working in the field need to engage collectively in a reflective process to refocus the subject combining elements from its \'golden age\' as well as from more contemporary sources.Sociology of Work and Employment; Industrial Sociology; Sociological Futures; Labour Process

Railway and grade: the historical construction of contemporary

This thesis attempts to understand the role and meaning of occupational identity in the contemporary British railway industry. It examines the way in which culture change initiatives and programmes have explicitly targeted an older 'railroad culture'. The study explores the way such a culture was portrayed by successive Conservative Governments and management as being a major obstacle to change, and a historic reason why the industry has under performed. The notion of the past failure of the industry, and a cultural analysis predicated on such assumptions, is challenged. Employing a historical and comparative research strategy, it is argued here that grade and industry culture is an emergent autonomous property of the workforce itself and as such attempts to change it are misguided, and at times positively harmful to the organisation. The research uses a variety of material collected from London Underground and former British Rail companies, including documentary sources, semi-structured interviews and non-participant observation techniques

New Divisions of Labour?: Comparative Thoughts on the Current Recession

This article argues that it is useful to compare the current recession with that which occurred three decades ago. Drawing on research undertaken at that time by Ray Pahl, it is suggested that four questions are once again revealing in the study of the current economic downturn: \'How have we come to be where we are currently?\', \'Who gets what?\', \'How do we know what we claim to know?\', and \'What sorts of lessons can be drawn to inform thinking about the future?\' The usefulness of asking these questions is discussed, even though the answers must await further research.Recession, Divisions of Labour, Community

Sociological Futures and the Importance of the Past

This article argues that in order to engage sociologically with the future the discipline needs to rediscover its historical imagination. It makes three main points. First is the idea that sociology needs to be more historical and to illustrate how this has been done well before. Second, it explores ideas, concepts and theories used in thinking about the past, which are in turn useful in organising how we imagine the future – in particular nostalgia, and especially that surrounding industry. Finally, it offers ways of thinking about the sociologically mediated relationship between past, present and future through the burgeoning field of deindustrialisation studies

Mining a productive seam? The coal industry, community and sociology

Recently there have been calls for sociology in Britain to reflect on its longstanding historical attention and focus, something which has been neglected of late. At the same time there is growing interest in the historiography of British sociology and critical reflection on how its early post-war assumptions went on to structure later research, writing and scholarship. Developing both of these insights this article looks at British sociology’s longstanding relationship with the coal industry, its work and especially its communities. From Coal is our Life (1956) through to Coal was our Life (2000) the sector has been an important site of sociological attention. It was an early focus of post-war community studies, becoming home to a residual traditional working class. Later still it was an arena of conflict on the front line of Thatcher’s Britain, before becoming a site on which to study loss and deindustrialisation. This article asks what sociology learnt from the deep coal mining industry and what it might still explore in the future around questions of regeneration and the ‘half-life’ of deindustrialisation

Empirical Challenges in Organizational Aesthetics Research: Towards a Sensual Methodology

Despite growing scholarly interest in aesthetic dimensions of organizational life, there is a lack of literature expressly engaging with the methodological mechanics of 'doing aesthetics research'. This article addresses that gap. It begins with an overview of the conceptual idiosyncrasies of 'aesthetics' as a facet of human existence and maps out the challenges these pose for empirical research methodology. A review of methodological approaches adopted to date in empirical studies of organizational aesthetics is then presented. The remainder of the article draws on the author's experiences and suggests methods and techniques to address both conceptual and practical challenges encountered during the execution of an organizational aesthetics research project. The article calls for a firmer focus on the aesthetic experiences of organizational members in addition to those of researchers and concludes with some suggestions as to the future of such 'sensual methodologies' </jats:p

What a girl’s gotta do: the labour of the biopolitical celebrity in austerity Britain

This article debunks the wide-spread view that young female celebrities, especially those who rise to fame through reality shows and other forms of media-orchestrated self-exposure, dodge ‘real’ work out of laziness, fatalism and a misguided sense of entitlement. Instead, we argue that becoming a celebrity in a neoliberal economy such as that of the United Kingdom, where austerity measures disproportionately disadvantage the young, women and the poor is not as irregular or exceptional a choice as previously thought, especially since the precariousness of celebrity earning power adheres to the current demands of the neoliberal economy on its workforce. What is more, becoming a celebrity involves different forms of labour that are best described as biopolitical, since such labour fully involves and consumes the human body and its capacities as a living organism. Weight gain and weight loss, pregnancy, physical transformation through plastic surgery, physical symptoms of emotional distress and even illness and death are all photographically documented and supplemented by extended textual commentary, usually with direct input from the celebrity, reinforcing and expanding on the visual content. As well as casting celebrity work as labour, we also maintain that the workings of celebrity should always be examined in the context of wider cultural and real economies

Food drink and the cultures of work: Consumption in the life and death of an English factory

This paper looks at the consumption of food and drink in the context of the workplace. It examines a variety of ways in which work culture and identity are constructed and reproduced across time and space. The paper is based on the author's research into the former Guinness brewery at Park Royal, London, which closed in the summer of 2005 after nearly seventy years of production. The paper reflects on industrial culture, memory, loss and nostalgia for a workplace in transition and in particular the role played by food and drink in this process. The paper draws on material generated by a mixture of methods and approaches including semi-structured interviews, archival research as well as visual methods