The Dirty Work of Neoliberalism
Cleaners in the Global Economy
Antipode Book Series
Dezember 2006
272 Seiten, Softcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
ISBN:
978-1-4051-5636-3
John Wiley & Sons
In this collection of essays, an international group of scholars investigate the global building cleaning industry to reveal the extent of neoliberalism's impact on cleaners.
* This book provides the first intensive study focusing on building cleaners and their global experiences
* Brings together an international group of scholars and experts to investigate different national contexts and examples
* Draws out important commonalities and highlights significant differences in these experiences
* Examines topics including erosion of cleaners' industrial citizenship rights, the impact of outsourcing upon their working conditions, economic security, and the intensification of their work and its negative effects on physical health
* Considers how cleaners are mobilizing to resist and respond to the restructuring of their work.
Introduction: Cleaners and the Dirty Work of Neoliberalism (Andrew
Herod and Luis L M Aguiar).
SECTION 1.
1. Introduction: Geographies of Neoliberalism (Andrew Herod and
Luis L M Aguiar).
2. Janitors and Sweatshop Citizenship in Canada (Luis L M
Aguiar).
3. Maria's Burden: Contract Cleaning and the Crisis of
Social Reproduction in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Andries
Bezuidenhout and Khayaat Fakier).
4. Restructuring the Architecture of State Regulation in the
Australian and Aotearoa/New Zealand Cleaning Industries and the
Growth of Precarious Employment (Shaun Ryan and Andrew Herod).
5. Manufacturing Modernity: Cleaning, Dirt, and Neoliberalism in
Chile (Patricia Tomic, Ricardo Trumper and Rodrigo Hidalgo
Dattwyler).
SECTION 2.
6. Introduction: Ethnographies of the Cleaning Body (Andrew
Herod and Luis L M Aguiar).
7. The Cleaners You Aren't Meant to See: Order, Hygiene
and Everyday Politics in a Bangkok Shopping Mall (Alyson
Brody).
8. Cleaning Up After Globalization: An Ergonomic Analysis of
Work Activity of Hotel Cleaners (Ana María Seifert and Karen
Messing).
9. Work Design and the Labouring Body: Examining the Impacts of
Work Organization on Danish Cleaners' Health (Karen
Sögaard, Anne Katrine Blangsted, Andrew Herod and Lotte
Finsen).
10. Introduction: Cleaners' Agency (Andrew Herod and Luis
L M Aguiar).
11. Cleaners' Organizing in Britain from the 1970s: A
Personal Account (Sheila Rowbotham).
12. The Privatization of Health Care Cleaning Services in
Southwestern British Columbia, Canada: Union Responses to
Unprecedented Government Actions (Marcy Cohen).
13. Justice for Janitors: Scales of Organizing and Representing
Workers (Lydia Savage).
Notes on Contributors.
Index.
Herod and Luis L M Aguiar).
SECTION 1.
1. Introduction: Geographies of Neoliberalism (Andrew Herod and
Luis L M Aguiar).
2. Janitors and Sweatshop Citizenship in Canada (Luis L M
Aguiar).
3. Maria's Burden: Contract Cleaning and the Crisis of
Social Reproduction in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Andries
Bezuidenhout and Khayaat Fakier).
4. Restructuring the Architecture of State Regulation in the
Australian and Aotearoa/New Zealand Cleaning Industries and the
Growth of Precarious Employment (Shaun Ryan and Andrew Herod).
5. Manufacturing Modernity: Cleaning, Dirt, and Neoliberalism in
Chile (Patricia Tomic, Ricardo Trumper and Rodrigo Hidalgo
Dattwyler).
SECTION 2.
6. Introduction: Ethnographies of the Cleaning Body (Andrew
Herod and Luis L M Aguiar).
7. The Cleaners You Aren't Meant to See: Order, Hygiene
and Everyday Politics in a Bangkok Shopping Mall (Alyson
Brody).
8. Cleaning Up After Globalization: An Ergonomic Analysis of
Work Activity of Hotel Cleaners (Ana María Seifert and Karen
Messing).
9. Work Design and the Labouring Body: Examining the Impacts of
Work Organization on Danish Cleaners' Health (Karen
Sögaard, Anne Katrine Blangsted, Andrew Herod and Lotte
Finsen).
10. Introduction: Cleaners' Agency (Andrew Herod and Luis
L M Aguiar).
11. Cleaners' Organizing in Britain from the 1970s: A
Personal Account (Sheila Rowbotham).
12. The Privatization of Health Care Cleaning Services in
Southwestern British Columbia, Canada: Union Responses to
Unprecedented Government Actions (Marcy Cohen).
13. Justice for Janitors: Scales of Organizing and Representing
Workers (Lydia Savage).
Notes on Contributors.
Index.
"An important collection drawing attention to the invisible workers
whose work it is to fashion the visible.... The debates raised in
this volume could be developed in many directions and it is no bad
thing that we are left wanting more." (Geographical Journal,
September 2008)
"Outhwaite's familiarity with his subject matter is
unquestionable, as is his desire to cover it thoroughly, and the
book will serve well as a guide for philosophers to the most
important work done by theoretical sociologists on the nature of
society." (Philosophy In Review)
"The Dirty Work of Neoliberalism offers a varied
and insightful examination of the global restructuring of the
cleaning industry and its implications for workers and their
struggles. It offers a good mix of more structural and
poststructural perspectives on these processes and their inherently
scalar nature. Moreover, many of its most effective chapters, such
as those by Bezuidenhuit and Fakier, show how work and social
reproduction are strongly interrelated." (Annals of the
Association of American Geographers)
"Subcontracted cleaners are on the front line of contemporary
capitalism. This important collection celebrates their labour,
their humanity and their resistance."
-Jane Wills, Queen Mary, University of London
"In this excellent collection Aguiar and Herod capture the
global dimension of a mundane type of work that until recently was
invisible to most observers but which has recently emerged as a key
node of new organizing. As the articles in this volume demonstrate,
all the classic issues that have sparked labor protest throughout
the history of capitalism are present in the work of cleaners -
wages, working conditions, health and safety, and perhaps most
important, human dignity."
-Ruth Milkman, University of California, Los
Angeles
whose work it is to fashion the visible.... The debates raised in
this volume could be developed in many directions and it is no bad
thing that we are left wanting more." (Geographical Journal,
September 2008)
"Outhwaite's familiarity with his subject matter is
unquestionable, as is his desire to cover it thoroughly, and the
book will serve well as a guide for philosophers to the most
important work done by theoretical sociologists on the nature of
society." (Philosophy In Review)
"The Dirty Work of Neoliberalism offers a varied
and insightful examination of the global restructuring of the
cleaning industry and its implications for workers and their
struggles. It offers a good mix of more structural and
poststructural perspectives on these processes and their inherently
scalar nature. Moreover, many of its most effective chapters, such
as those by Bezuidenhuit and Fakier, show how work and social
reproduction are strongly interrelated." (Annals of the
Association of American Geographers)
"Subcontracted cleaners are on the front line of contemporary
capitalism. This important collection celebrates their labour,
their humanity and their resistance."
-Jane Wills, Queen Mary, University of London
"In this excellent collection Aguiar and Herod capture the
global dimension of a mundane type of work that until recently was
invisible to most observers but which has recently emerged as a key
node of new organizing. As the articles in this volume demonstrate,
all the classic issues that have sparked labor protest throughout
the history of capitalism are present in the work of cleaners -
wages, working conditions, health and safety, and perhaps most
important, human dignity."
-Ruth Milkman, University of California, Los
Angeles
Luis L.M. Aguiar researches neoliberalism and its impact on
immigrant and minority workers in the Canadian building-cleaning
industry. In addition, he writes on whiteness, racism and growing
up immigrant in Montreal. At the moment, he is studying the
Okanagan Valley in British Columbia and its changing hinterland
status in the global economy. A research project on janitors'
internationalism is in development, as is a study of former
Canadian boxing champion Eddie Melo and pop diva Nelly Furtado. He
teaches globalization and labour, urban sociology, cultural
studies, the sociology of tourism, racism, and qualitative methods.
Andrew Herod is Professor of Geography, Adjunct Professor
of International Affairs, and Adjunct Professor of Anthropology,
University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA. He has written widely on
issues of globalisation and labour politics. He is the author of:
Labor Geographies: Workers and the Landscapes of
Capitalism(2001), the editor of Organizing the Landscape:
Geographical Perspectives on Labor Unionism (1998); and
co-editor of Geographies of Power: Placing Scale(Blackwell
Publishing 2002, with Melissa Wright) and of An Unruly World?
Globalization, Governance and Geography (1998, with
Gearóid Ó Tuathail, and Susan Roberts). He is presently
writing a book on the global economy to be published by Blackwell
Publishing.
immigrant and minority workers in the Canadian building-cleaning
industry. In addition, he writes on whiteness, racism and growing
up immigrant in Montreal. At the moment, he is studying the
Okanagan Valley in British Columbia and its changing hinterland
status in the global economy. A research project on janitors'
internationalism is in development, as is a study of former
Canadian boxing champion Eddie Melo and pop diva Nelly Furtado. He
teaches globalization and labour, urban sociology, cultural
studies, the sociology of tourism, racism, and qualitative methods.
Andrew Herod is Professor of Geography, Adjunct Professor
of International Affairs, and Adjunct Professor of Anthropology,
University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA. He has written widely on
issues of globalisation and labour politics. He is the author of:
Labor Geographies: Workers and the Landscapes of
Capitalism(2001), the editor of Organizing the Landscape:
Geographical Perspectives on Labor Unionism (1998); and
co-editor of Geographies of Power: Placing Scale(Blackwell
Publishing 2002, with Melissa Wright) and of An Unruly World?
Globalization, Governance and Geography (1998, with
Gearóid Ó Tuathail, and Susan Roberts). He is presently
writing a book on the global economy to be published by Blackwell
Publishing.
