Piecing Together the Meaning of “Dirty Work”

• Authors: Julian Torelli
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

I reflect upon Dr. William Shaffir’s influence on my approach to ethnographic research and my study of homeless shelter workers. Dr. Shaffir introduced me to his own brand of the craft of qualitative field work, but also introduced me to important sociologists and ideas in the symbolic in­teractionist tradition. Most central was Everett C. Hughes’ notion of “dirty work,” which helped shape my research focus. Building from Hughes’ concept, but expanding it with Shaffir and Pawluch’s (2003) social constructionist approach to occupations, I was better able to conceptualize the process of how workers themselves piece together the meaning of “dirty work.” Beyond gaining these conceptual insights, I also reflect on Dr. Shaffir’s teaching philosophy of qualitative methods, that is, the impor­tance of learning by doing. I conclude with some thoughts regarding Shaffir’s perspective on the wider ethnographic task of describing, in situ, members’ understandings and definitions. Following Everett Hughes, I call on interactionists to give more attention to “dirty work” as a generic and transcontextual process.    

Keywords

EN

Dirty Work; Ethnography; Symbolic Interactionism; Occupations and Professions; William Shaffir

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Łódzki. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
• Journal: Qualitative Sociology Review
• Year: 2020
• Volume: 16
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 92-105

Dates

published

2020-04-30

Contributors

author

Julian Torelli

• McMaster University, Canada

• https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2479-4779

References

• Adorjan, Michael. 2019. “Social Constructionism Now More Than Ever: Following the Hermeneutic Money Trail in a PostTruth World.” The American Sociologist 50(2):160-174.
• Becker, Howard S. 1986. Doing Things Together. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
• Ben-Yehuda, Nachman et al. 1989. “Howard S. Becker: A Portrait of an Intellectual’s Sociological Imagination.” Sociological Inquiry 59(4):467-489.
• Berger, Peter L. 2002. “Whatever Happened to Sociology?” First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life 126(October):27-30.
• Blumer, Herbert. 1969. Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Chapoulie, Jean-Michel. 1987. “Everett C. Hughes and the Development of Fieldwork in Sociology.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 15(3-4):259-298.
• Dewey, John. 1958. Democracy and Education. New York: The Macmillan Company.
• Emerson, Robert M. and Melvin Pollner. 1976. “Dirty Work Designations: Their Features and Consequences in a Psychiatric Setting.” Social Problems 23(3):243-254.
• Gans, Herbert J. 1968. “The Participant-Observer as a Human Being: Observations on the Personal Aspects of Fieldwork.” Pp. 300-317 in Institutions and the Person, edited by H. S. Becker et al. Chicago: Aldine.
• Gans, Herbert J. 1972. “The Positive Functions of Poverty.” American Journal of Sociology 78(2):275-289.
• Garfinkel, Harold. 1967. Studies in Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Goffman, Erving. 1974. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Harris, Scott R. 2006. “Social Constructionism and Social Inequality: An Introduction to a Special Issue of JCE.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 35(3):223-235.
• Hughes, Everett C. 1958. Men and Their Work. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.
• Hughes, Everett C. 1970. “The Humble and the Proud: The Comparative Study of Occupations.” The Sociological Quarterly 11(2):147-156.
• Hughes, Everett C. 1971. The Sociological Eye: Selected Papers. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
• Hughes, Everett C. 1994. On Work, Race, and the Sociological Imagination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Husserl, Edmund. 1970. The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
• Latour, Bruno. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 2013. Myth and Meaning. London: Routledge.
• McLuhan, Arthur and Antony Puddephatt. 2019. “Overcoming Analytic Interruptus: The Genesis, Development, and Future of Generic Social Processes.” Studies in Symbolic Interaction 50:71-93.
• Nichols, Lawrence. 2019. “Editor’s Introduction: Constructionism as Interpretive Tradition and as Emergent Deviance in Sociology.” The American Sociologist 50(2):155-159.
• Parsons, Talcott. 1968. The Structure of Social Action: A Study in Social Theory with Special Reference to a Group of Recent European Writers. New York: The Free Press.
• Pawluch, Dorothy. 2019. “On the Unbearable Lightness of Being a Constructionist.” The American Sociologist 50(2):204-219.
• Pawluch, Dorothy, William Shaffir, and Charlene E. Miall. 2005. Doing Ethnography: Studying Everyday Life. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press.
• Plummer, Kenneth. 2003. “Continuity and Change in Howard S. Becker’s Work: An Interview with Howard S. Becker.” Sociological Perspectives 46(1):21-39.
• Prus, Robert. 1987. “Generic Social Processes: Maximizing Conceptual Development in Ethnographic Research.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 16(3):250-293.
• Prus, Robert, Mary Lou Dietz, and William B. Shaffir. 1997. “Doing Ethnographic Research: Fieldwork as Practical Accomplishment.” Pp. 191-251 in Subcultural Mosaics and Intersubjective Realities, edited by R. Prus. New York: State University of New York Press.
• Puddephatt, Antony and Arthur McLuhan. 2019. “Generic Social Processes: Re-Imagining a Conceptual Schema for Grounded Theory in the Contemporary Era.” Sociological Focus 52(2):140-155.
• Puddephatt, Antony J., William Shaffir, and Steven W. Kleinknecht (eds.). 2009. Ethnographies Revisited: Constructing Theory in the Field. New York: Routledge.
• Satzewich, Victor and William Shaffir. 2009. “Racism versus Professionalism: Claims and Counter-Claims about Racial Profiling.” Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice 51(2):199-226.
• Schneider, Joseph. 2018. “The Challenges of Conceptualizing Social Problems.” Pp. 3-22 in Cambridge Handbook of Social Problems (Volume 1), edited by A. J. Trevino. New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Schopenhauer, Arthur. 1901. The Wisdom of Life and Other Essays. Washington, London: M. Walter Dunne Publisher.
• Schütz, Alfred. 1962. “On Multiple Realities.” Pp. 207-259 in Collected Papers I. The Problem of Social Reality, edited by M. Natanson. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
• Scott, Marvin B. and Scott M. Lyman. 1968. “Accounts.” American Sociological Review 33(1):46-62.
• Shaffir, William. 1991. “Managing a Convincing Self-Presentation: Some Personal Reflections on Entering the Field.” Pp. 72-81 in Experiencing Fieldwork: An Inside View of Qualitative Research, edited by W. B. Shaffir and R. A. Stebbins. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
• Shaffir, William. 1999. “Doing Ethnography: Reflections on Finding Your Way.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 28(6):676-686.
• Shaffir, William. 2011. “Hassidim and the ‘Reasonable Accommodation’ Debate in Quebec.” Jewish Journal of Sociology 50(1):33-50.
• Shaffir, William and Dorothy Pawluch. 2003. “Occupations and Professions.” Pp. 893-913 in Handbook of Symbolic Interactionism, edited by L. T. Reynolds and N. J. Herman-Kinney. New York: Altamira Press.
• Shaffir, William and Robert A. Stebbins. 1991. Experiencing Fieldwork: An Inside View of Qualitative Research. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications.
• Snow, David A. and Leon Anderson. 1993. Down on their Luck: A Study of Homeless Street People. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Strauss, Anselm. 1996. “Everett Hughes: Sociology’s Mission.” Symbolic Interaction 19(4):271-283.
• Strong, P. M. 1980. “Doctors and Dirty Work-The Case of Alcoholism.” Sociology of Health & Illness 2(1):24-47.
• Swidler, Ann. 1986. “Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies.” American Sociological Review 51(2):273-286.
• Thomas, William I. and Dorothy S. Thomas. 1928. The Child in America: Behavior Problems and Programs. New York: Knopf.
• van der Geest, Sjaak. 2002. “The Night-Soil Collector: Bucket Latrines in Ghana.” Postcolonial Studies: Culture, Politics, Economy 5(2):197-206.
• Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 2009. Philosophical Investigations. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Identifiers

DOI

10.18778/1733-8077.16.2.08