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Liberating the Semantics: Embodied Work(Man)ship in Construction

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Societies under Construction

Abstract

Human bodies are under-researched in organisational theorising. This chapter brings out the perceived experiences and emotions of a physical body-in-context. Using a narrative approach and life-story analysis, the authors examine the interplay between strongly entrenched masculine corporeal inscriptions of an ideal (normal) body and the embodied performances of one female construction site manager as she makes active choices to appropriate and occupy viable subject positions made available by her engagement with deeply entrenched semantically gender-burdened meanings. To do this, she purposefully enacts multiple bodies, mobilising masculine and feminine gender strategies to craft her identity and subject position. The chapter shows that construction is a rich and fertile empirical site for challenging and expanding social science theorising of the body and of work.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Butler distinguishes between ‘performance’ and ‘performativity’. The former she defines as a bounded act by a deliberate subject while the latter is iterative enactment of norms which precede, constrain and exceed the performer’s ‘will’ or ‘choice’ (Butler 1993, p. 24). We argue that the performer’s enactment cannot only be reduced to discursive prescription, but that he/she in engaging with the discourse may resist or intervene by appropriating available subject positions (Smith 1988; Nelson 1999).

  2. 2.

    Brewis et al. (1997, p. 1280) depicted the prevailing modern(ist) ideal of ‘real men’ using a similar enumeration of masculine-appropriated qualifiers, namely ‘logical, argumentative, potent, masterful, hardworking, and incrementally progressive’.

  3. 3.

    Note that we make a clear distinction between uncertainty and insufficiency: the former we see as denoting insecurity of some kind while the latter refers to a lack of some kind, most often due to external factors.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Rikard Sandberg

  2. Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Christine Räisänen & Martin Löwstedt

  3. Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

    Ani Raiden

Authors
  1. Rikard Sandberg
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  2. Christine Räisänen
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  3. Martin Löwstedt
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  4. Ani Raiden
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christine Räisänen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business and Economics, Loughborough University, Loughborough, United Kingdom

    Daniel J. Sage

  2. School of Business, University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom

    Chloé Vitry

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Sandberg, R., Räisänen, C., Löwstedt, M., Raiden, A. (2018). Liberating the Semantics: Embodied Work(Man)ship in Construction. In: Sage, D., Vitry, C. (eds) Societies under Construction. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73996-0_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73996-0_4

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-73996-0

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