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

    Evans, Samantha and Whiting, Rebecca and MacKenzie Davey, Kate (2020) Struggles for distinction: classing as discursive process in UK museum work. Gender, Work & Organization , ISSN 0968-6673.

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    Abstract

    This paper 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 contextualise 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 practiced. Discursive strategies of reinforcing, reframing and re-valorising 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.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Additional Information: This is the peer reviewed version of the article, which has been published in final form at the link above. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): class, diversity, inequality, museums, Bourdieu, capital, discourse
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Business and Law > Birkbeck Business School
    Depositing User: Rebecca Whiting
    Date Deposited: 21 Jan 2020 09:27
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 17:56
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/30627

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