Struggles for distinction: Classing as discursive process in UK museum work

Samantha Evans, Rebecca Whiting and Kate Mackenzie Davey

Gender, Work and Organization, 2021, vol. 28, issue 3, 992-1007

Abstract: This article responds to calls from critical diversity scholars to explore class in context, arguing for a view of classing as a discursive process and adopting Bourdieu's concept of field as a site of discursive struggle. Analysing interview, web and focus group data, we address this in the field of UK museum work. We contextualize the field's dynamic nature, highlighting its state of flux and explore three discourses: distinguishing the field; disavowing the market; and gaining recognition through which it is constituted, and classing practised. Discursive strategies of reinforcing, reframing and re‐valorizing were deployed by participants to legitimate their own and other positions in the field. We show how classing is a core process constituting an occupational field, how museum workers are entrapped by and complicit in this process, and conclude with wider implications for understandings of class, classed inequality and diversity.

Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12433

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:gender:v:28:y:2021:i:3:p:992-1007

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0968-6673

Access Statistics for this article

Gender, Work and Organization is currently edited by David Knights, Deborah Kerfoot and Ida Sabelis

More articles in Gender, Work and Organization from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().