Cultural Geography

remember that this coincidence or fit was for

men in the main, and among the working class

only for the labour aristocracy). In the new

world, Bauman argues, identity is constructed in

the sphere of consumption, through lifestyle

purchases, in a society in which aesthetic ideals

rather than ethical norms dominate. In the

following passage Bauman spells out the impli-

cations of this shift for employment:

The status occupied by work, or more precisely by the

job performed, could not but be profoundly affected by

the present ascendancy of aesthetic criteria. Work has

lost its privileged position – that of an axis around

which all other effort at self-constitution and identity-

building rotate. But work has also ceased to be a focus

of particularly intense ethical attention in terms of

being a chosen road to moral improvement, repentance

and redemption. Like other life activities, work now

comes first and foremost under aesthetic scrutiny. Its

value is judged by its capacity to generate pleasurable

experience. Work devoid of such capacity – that does

not offer ‘intrinsic satisfaction’ – is also work devoid of

value. (1998: 32)

For the elite, in high-status occupations, ‘the line

dividing vocation from avocation, job from

hobby, work from recreation’ has been effaced,

lifting ‘work itself to the rank of supreme and

most satisfying entertainment. An entertaining

job is a highly coveted privilege’ (1998: 34).

And so, Bauman notes, ‘workaholics with no

fixed hours of work, preoccupied with the chal-

lenges of their jobs twenty-four hours a day and

seven days a week, may be found today not

among the slaves, but among the elite of the

lucky and successful’ (1998: 34).

Bauman’s analysis has parallels with the argu-

ments about the elision of work and leisure

mentioned earlier in this chapter and with the

expanding number of recent studies that insist on

the significance of an embodied performance in

the workplace (Acker, 1990; Adkins, 1995; du

Gay, 1996; Hochschild, 1983; Kerfoot and

Knights, 1996; Leidner, 1993; Leslie and Butz,

1998; McDowell, 1997; Pringle, 1989; 1998).

While this erasure of the division between work

and ‘life’, employment and consumption, may

be the case for an elite, for the masses in post-

Fordist economies, Bauman argues, work has

become increasingly meaningless, boring, with-

out worth, with no security or corresponding

commitment. These differences between types of

work are now more obvious without a work ethic

that emphasizes the dignity of labour for all

workers, and which once conveyed a message of

equality of respect between men, despite evident

differences in their rewards and conditions.

Thus, in Bauman’s view, work itself has lost the

inherent value that it once possessed. These are

grand claims and need substantiation or modifi-

cation through careful empirical analysis of the

meaning of work in different occupations at all

levels in the labour market. In a fascinating study

of the skills developed through low-wage work

in the fast-food sector in New York City, anthro-

pologist Katherine Newman (1999) persuasively

argues that these jobs not only inculcate work

discipline but also provide workers with a sense

of self-worth and respect. While not denying the

often exploitative conditions of employment, it is

demeaning to dismiss ‘McJobs’ as intrinsically

worthless and Bauman’s assertions need to be

tested against employees’ own opinions of their

working lives.

The corrosion of character?

A rather similar argument about the loss of the

inherent value of employment in ‘flexible’ capi-

talism has been made by the sociologist Richard

Sennett (1998). Like Bauman, Sennett suggests

that, in the brave new world of a new capitalism

characterized by risk, flexibility, networking and

short-term team work, the ability to reinvent one-

self and to construct a convincing performance

is a crucial attribute of success. However, in

Sennett’s view, this essential characteristic leads

to a destructive corrosion of a sense of self-

worth, and the loss of trust and integrity which

were valued by an earlier generation of both

employees and employers. Long-term commitment

on both sides has been destroyed by new institu-

tional and labour market practices in which it is

the short term that matters – for both profits

and employment. Consequently the senses of

linear time and cumulative achievement that

marked the lives of the ‘decent’ working class in

previous (post-war) decades have been replaced

by uncertainty and, Sennett suggests, a loss of

connection to locality and community.

Both Bauman and Sennett, in my view, fail to

recall Ray Pahl’s (1984) warning about the tran-

sitory nature of the Fordist era, reading off its

characteristics as a singular ideal that no longer

exists. They fail to recognize the extent of the

variations in earlier eras in the nature of attach-

ment to the labour market: most women and a

large proportion of the male working class faced

uncertain and transitory attachment to the labour

market throughout most of the twentieth century.

There is also a noticeable lack of consideration

of the variability and multiplicity of the ways in

which new identities are being constructed in the

labour market. Neither theorist, for example,

looks at gender differentiation, despite their

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