Society for the Anthropology of Work

Angela Jancius, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

SAW Sessions in San Jose

By Jim Weil, Belinda Leach, Carrie Lane Chet (SAW Board Members)

This year the Society for the Anthropology of Work continues its tradition of addressing critical issues of theoretical interest that affect the lives and livelihoods of people in our research settings and beyond. The sessions engage topics of broad public concern, and several are reflexive in their consideration of the work of anthropologists themselves.

The SAW business meeting is on Saturday evening from 6:15 to 7:30. As always, we will go around the room for introductions and updates on current interests. Many of you will be surprised to find how central the anthropology of work is to what you already are doing, whatever your specializations may be.

PRESENTATION BY ARLIE HOCHSCHILD, RECIPIENT OF THE CONRAD ARENSBERG AWARD

We are pleased to announce Arlie Russell Hochschild as the recipient of the 2006 Conrad Arensberg Award for career contributions to the study of work. Hochschild, a professor of sociology at UC Berkeley, is the author of ground-breaking works on women’s dual labor in the general economy and within the household. All are invited to attend her address, “Intimate Life in Market Times,” at the Arensberg Award Presentation (Saturday 12:15-1:30p.m.).

REGULAR SESSIONS

Socialization to Work: Growing up in Working Families in the U.S. (Wednesday 2:00-3:45 p.m.) examines parents’ attitudes toward the plethora of tasks that must be accomplished inside and outside of the home and the resulting patterns of children’s socialization to present and future work roles. Presenters report on research conducted through the UCLA Sloan Center on Everyday Lives of Families. The Anthropology of Work, the Work of Anthropology (Wednesday 4:00-4:45 p.m.) turns the concepts and methods we use for the study of “others” back on the beliefs, practices and institutional contexts of the subculture of anthropology. By making how our work is carried out more explicit we can enhance the effectiveness of our research.

Critical Intersections of Anthropology and History, Culture and Class: Working Within and Against the Writings and Teaching of Gerald M. Sider (Thursday 8:00-11:45 a.m.) is an Invited Session co-sponsored with AES. Responding to Sider’s four-decade long concern for the marginalized yet resilient peoples in the rural hinterlands of capitalism, presenters explore his influence on key problems in contemporary research, writing and teaching. Transparency and the Global Market: Unveiling Visions, Challenges, Contestations (Thursday 8:00-11:45 a.m.) traces manifestations of the concept of transparency as an implied remedy for the concentration of power, especially as an organizing principle and administrative goal in states, markets, corporations, and other institutions, ranging from the local to the global. In addition to policy formulation, presenters discuss strategic kinds of work, such as accounting and auditing and the changing material world of architecture, design and fashion.

Collaboration and Ethics: Looking Behind to Look Ahead (Friday 8:00-9:45 a.m.) considers the work of anthropologists with publishers, informants and practitioners of other disciplines. Appraising work worlds through the lens of collaboration highlights questions of ethics and behavior, providing a context for new perspectives and innovative scrutiny of our concerns, investigations and practices. Organized Labor and Labor Organizations in a Global System (Friday 1:45-5:45 p.m.) addresses the integration of worldwide flows of capital, labor, production facilities and products. Labor unions in the U.S. have reassessed stances on immigration and the value of organizing undocumented and low-paid service workers, while engaging with unions in other countries, organized social movements, and campaigns to influence transnational corporations. Corporate Globalization and the New Middle Classes (Friday 4:00-5:45 p.m.) considers how the middle classes, created and transformed through the globalization of labor and capital, take on social meanings that are deeply entwined in national, local, and global contexts. The multi-regional panel considers how members of these new middle classes experience and understand work and identity according to gender, generation, race, ethnicity and nationality.

The Anthropology of “The Real Thing”: Developing an Activist Research Agenda for Corporate Globalization (Saturday 8:00-9:45 p.m.) is an Invited Session based on recent anthropological engagements and efforts to theorize transnational corporations. With reference to grass-roots struggles involving labor, health, environmental and human rights issues, the panel asks how anthropologists can coordinate data collection, analysis and dissemination about possible remedies for adverse impacts of TNCs in particular locales. Field/Work: Work as an Object of Anthropological Inquiry Beyond “Ethnos” (Saturday 1:45-5:30 p.m.) reconsiders the very project of ethnography, questioning “work” and corollary terms such as labor, vocation and profession in a way similar to current assessments of the contours of the anthropological “field.” This involves post-colonial problematizations of the universality of abstract labor and investigations of the international division of labor, also stimulating a re-examination of fieldwork methods.

Please send SAW column contribution ideas to Angela Jancius (jancius@ohio.edu).