Tag: sociology

The indignity of service work | My experiences as a fast-food worker | Part 3

June 19, 2017

“At foodchain, the objective of the game was to maximise certain types of additional sales and compete with fellow workers on daily scoreboards, displayed for all workers to see. Falling below a certain threshold cumulative score for the week could result in penalisation and winning meant possible rewards. Domination is more apparent when considering penalisation might include being made redundant, or more perniciously, scheduling less hours of work for the “losing” worker.” … More The indignity of service work | My experiences as a fast-food worker | Part 3

The indignity of service work | My experiences as a fast-food worker | Part 2

June 14, 2017

“In an article comparing Antonio Gramsci’s ideas about domination being based on a somewhat consensual hegemonic order with Pierre Bourdieu’s ideas about domination being partly resultant from a misrecognition of social domination by the dominated, Michael Burawoy talks about his experiences working on a factory shop floor. Burawoy talks about the types of concessions given by management to the workers in order to legitimise and make more consensual their relationship, which is analogous Burawoy and others like Gramsci could claim, to the class relationship in broader society, between capitalists and proletarians. One of the sources of consent-making identified by Burawoy was the consititution of work as a game.” … More The indignity of service work | My experiences as a fast-food worker | Part 2

The indignity of service work | My experiences as a fast-food worker | Part 1

February 22, 2017

“I have wanted to re-write this essay for years but have held back due to a lack of time and, more importantly, because it brings up painful memories. I did, and will, abstract away from the contents of my empirical experience to make arguments about how the structuring of experience and lack of agency and expression possible for workers is evidence that capitalist society is immoral (if we can assume so much without getting into a debate about meta-ethics) but it is paramount to understanding this thesis that you keep in mind that the data provided here is not itself some abstract fantasy used to support the argument, but my real lived experience.” … More The indignity of service work | My experiences as a fast-food worker | Part 1

Why Plymouth’s “Socialists” are deluded | Commentary on another poor article by the local rag

February 15, 2017

A commentary on a terrible Plymouth Herald article about the delusions of the local Socialist Party Branch. One section showing how I was harassed last time I criticised the Plymouth Herald. A final section summarising my experiences of working with the Socialist Party last year. It’s all bad. … More Why Plymouth’s “Socialists” are deluded | Commentary on another poor article by the local rag

What Do Final Year BSc Sociology Students Actually Do? | Media & State Studies Seminar Part 1: Simulated Identities & the Digital Generation

June 15, 2016

“For this series, I would like to give a taste of what it is sociology, as one of the most denigrated sciences online, is actually like. The structure of this assignment, which I am reproducing here mostly unedited, was quite unusual compared to most work undertaken for this subject- essays and some fieldwork- but I think illustrates the variety of ways final year study is done.
In this seminar we discussed whether the digital generation really exists and how we, as part of it, use technology.” … More What Do Final Year BSc Sociology Students Actually Do? | Media & State Studies Seminar Part 1: Simulated Identities & the Digital Generation