Introduction: Scope and Limitations
It is the denial of class that I find most problematic [âŠ] people are continually identifying how the working class is being stigmatised, and how class itself in being eradicated from our thinking. (Jackson 2017, p. 36)
While there are now a range of exemplary interpretations of the development of the Sociology of Work (SoW) in the UK since 1945 their preference, for the most part, has been to identify the sequential nature of this compelling story. Significant narratives include accounts by Watson (five editions from 1980 to 2008), Grint (2000), addressing the subject thematically with insightful overviews of the subject delineated in five themes, and more exploratory and important analytical work by, for example, Parry et al. (2006) and Halford and Strangleman (2009). Strangleman in Edgell et al. (2016) can be understood as a key text problematizing the canon to date and follows the development of an oeuvre which explores the origins, nature (ontology) and status of the sub-discipline. Most narratives begin with the post-war labour productivity studies that include the work of Trist and Bamforth, continue with an exploration of the embourgeoisement thesis including the Affluent Worker Studies, leading to the workplace studies of the 1960s and 1970s, then through to the late 1990s and early 2000s with consideration of the importance of the diversity of the sub-discipline. Some of this has occasioned debate, most prominently between Parker and Strangleman, which we reflect upon below.
In the settled narrative, the grand precursor in the development of an identity for the SoW is the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century sociological canon comprising Durkheim, Marx and Weber which form the bedrock of the wider discipline. This provided the early contours to the framing of debates in the post-war period and has been taken by some as critical to the continuing identity of the SoW. While the founding canon comprises more than the âgreat trioâ, this reference to the founding tenets of sociology and the SoW is a necessary means of distinguishing it from economics, economic history and psychology. While not always manifest in debates in the 1950s, the canon remerged in the discussion around the Affluent Worker studies only to be (sometimes too) conveniently ignored in the last quarter century or so.
Taking the latter as the period in which the trio began to be seen by some as having less relevance in defining the bedrock of the SoW, many identify the years, beginning in the late 1970s, as a sign of SoWâs conceptual fragmentation, dissipation, maturation, and, occasionally, a combination of all three. Depending upon the conceptual and historical point of departure of the writer, the latter state of affairs has positive or negative virtues and sometimes a mix of both (see, inter alia, Parker 2015; Strangleman 2005; Halford and Strangleman 2009; Beynon 2011; Edwards 2014a; Strangleman 2016; Warren 2016). Adding to this concern is the deeply worrying existential threat to the SoW posed by the institutional fissiparous character of the sub-discipline, beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s. This too is seen by some to have pros and cons. The location of the SoW in spaces beyond sociology departments, specifically in management and business schools (we use the designation interchangeably), is taken to pose a threat since the institutional context in which the sub-discipline is practiced is vital in affirming its DNA. We could describe these, the intellectual-disciplinary coherence and institutional location of the sub-genre, as its intellectual and institutional spread and this is a significant concern for Halford and Strangleman (inter alia Scott 2005): it represents a weakness for them. It is a common feature of many narratives of the formation of the SoW since the Second World War to find the mid-seventies period described as the end of its Golden Age.1
Although these two features (intellectual and disciplinary) which we have defined as spread are related, it is important to make the point that while both persist today they have somewhat different origins and, despite overlap, are nevertheless irreducible. The âwhereâ, the âhowâ and the âwhyâ of the SoW certainly matter, but one feature of our argument is that the SoW has always been institutionally and disciplinarily contested. A reasonable challenge to those who want to âtake it backâ from its dalliance with other disciplines (and the supposed dilution of the genre) is to point out that while its institutional origins may have consolidated in Sociology departments, the SoW was never only practiced there, and probably never will be.
To put it bluntly, there has never been an agreed common view, a doxa, when it comes to defining the SoW as ââŠthe meaning of work is contestedâ (Warren 2016, p. 46). We can take Warrenâs point as the beginning of our injunction which is that in charting the changing nature of work the sub-discipline not only mapped the evolution of work in capitalist society but has, by necessity, changed in respect of its character, form and methods of enquiry. The implications of this cannot be ignored easily: those looking back at the Golden Age will be disheartened to learn that it will never return. Our view challenges the assumption that the sub-disciplined ever enjoyed a Golden Age characterised by a range of factors including institutional and ontological coherence. This would be to misread the trajectory of the subject within a reflexive account, which is what sociology is, of late capitalism (Jameson 2011). Given how the Golden Age is typically defined, we argue first that the SoW was never practiced only in sociology departments, by âsociologistsâ, and, second, that the meaning of the SoW and its contours have never been settled. This is a critical feature of its strength: the ability to mutate along three dimensions: institutional, ontological and, hence, methodological.
Thus, this chapter will consider the changing nature of the SoW in Britain, not only in respect of changing subject matter, but in relation to how these three dimensions have evolved. The narrative will consider these in terms of what we take to be exemplary published research during the course of the evolution of post-war British capitalism. Some of our readings can be placed readily in the canon of the so-called Golden Age. The fact that what might be termed âthe unoffical registerâ, the periodic review of work published in the British Sociological Associationâs journal Work, Employment and Society, beginning in 1987 with Richard Brownâs editorial, indicates the global reach and disciplinary openness of work, that we would describe as sociological, makes a full account of the SoW unlikely. Moreover, the fact that describing this work as sociological is contested could be taken as illustrating our point about spread. A good example of spread could include developments drawing on areas of study previously laying outside a SoW agenda, for example, radical geography, as exemplified in the work of Herod et al. (2007). There is also an important theme of work and time explored by Hassard (1996) which we cannot address here though we do so in our forthcoming monograph on the SoW in the UK. [Readers can check developments in the field of the SOW and related areas of the sub-discipline in what we have termed the unofficial register by consulting the following editorials: Stewart (2004), Rainbird and Rose (2008), Stuart et al. (2011), Stuart et al. (2013) and Beck et al. (2016)]. And of course, as many have noted, many pieces addressing the SoW appear elsewhere and notably in the BSAâs flagship journal, Sociology, an exemplary of this being the special issue from 2009 (volume 43: 5) edited by Susan Halford and Tim Strangleman, a number of papers with which we engage here. Even this does not encompass the full spectrum since SoW is published in myriad other journals including, amongst many others, Organisations, Human Relations and Human Resource Management Journal.
Given that the use of the term âthe sociology of workâ is as fraught in the UK as elsewhere, it is incumbent that we specify the phenomenon we think it analyses. Indeed, it was well into the 1990s before the descriptor Sociology of Industry fell out of fashion and this is especially interesting when we note its use by Eldridge et al. (1991). Eldridge et al. are of particular interest precisely because the subject matter discussed in their book addresses the relationship between the crisis in the political economy and the crisis they perceive in the study of the political economy by sociologists under the guise of sociologists of industry. In short, industrial sociology was in crisis specifically due to the fact that industrial work was itself in decline. We should state that we pay due homage to their critique which we are more than happy to embrace and in many ways echo. This is the view that the type of SoW (industry) practiced in any given era is reflective of the nature and form of capitalist work and employment. Their response to the disciplinary crisis was to reject what they recognised as Hymanâs otherwise fruitful call for the displacement of bourgeois social science by a Marxist critique of the political economy. (We explore the finer texture of this debate in our forthcoming book on the SoW in the UK.) For Eldridge et al., disciplinary renewal would be better served by beginning with an appreciation of sociologyâs broader recognition of crisis as set out in the work of, inter alia, Durkheim and Weber. For us, we take both Eldridge et al. and Hymanâs perceptions to hold specific virtues. Our concern is to flag up their place in the sub-disciplineâs evolution in the 1990s. Especially, we see Eldridge et al. (1991) as illustrative of our claim that while the sub-discipline evolves it has always done so with a certain indeterminate focus.
In fact, as the debate about the nature of the SoW demonstrates, following Warren (2016), the concept is contested precisely because the nature of work itself is contested. While we indicate some pitfalls in the use of the concept by others, our usage is not an imperative. With apologies to purists who might prefer a core ontology, our starting point is that while the SoW is disputed since the nature of work is disputed, the SoW in late capitalist Britain will change as the political economy evolves, methods change in our research of its form, character and trajectory, and thus the discipline will spread, and deepen, in its impact and influence across a range of disciplinary boundaries (for an exemplary account, see Parry et al. 2006). âTaking it backâ to the heartland of sociology departments would be a retreat: for us, what we term spread is a strength, not a weakness.
To explore the evolution of the history of the SoW in the context of post-war Britain is a major undertaking and can only reasonably be achieved through a carefully considered strategic approach in which what we consider to be key textual material is cited. We accept that this is inevitably skewed given our variously different individual formations. Neither can we address specific and otherwise vital debates and new departures in detail, such as explorations of the relationship between the SoW and history, memory-nostalgia, or debates on legacy, occupational identity or sex work (see, respectively, inter alia, Abrams 1982; Brown 1987; Strangleman 2007; Dawson et al. 2015; MacKenzie et al. 2017; Brewis and Linstead 2003). Thus, rather than providing a comprehensive annotated bibliography of Britainâs contribution to the SoW, we offer for the first time a sociological account of the evolution of the sub-discipline through an exploration rooted it in the social, political and economic structures and contexts which have prompted the most significant contributions to its twists and turns over the period since the end of the Second World War.
We divide our exemplars into three eras in the development of post-war capitalism. We intend to achieve this through an examination of what we see as the seminal work exemplifying the significant trends in the...