Ethnographic Research in the Construction Industry

by Pink; Sarah

• ISBN13: 9780415603430
• ISBN10: 0415603439
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-08-27
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The construction industry as a workplace is commonly seen as problematic for a number of reasons, including its worrying health and safety record, the instability of its workforce, with casualized employment practices and the power-relations that frame it, and the poorly regulated nature of the sector. Moreover in different national contexts these issues are experienced in different ways and with different intensities, and through varied cultural, economic, political and policy frames. This book outlines how social science perspectives, rooted in ethnographic research on construction sites and with construction workers themselves, can generate fresh insights into the nature of the industry and conditions of work in it. Each chapter develops discussion on the basis of an ethnographic case study to examine what theoretically informed ethnographic research can tell us about working practices, socialities, ways of being, knowing and experiencing in the construction industry, and suggests how a critical approach to these industry 'problems' can contribute to our understanding of the wider social, cultural and political contexts in which industry-specific 'problems' exist.