Status Fixity and Dirty Workers’ Experiences of Recognition

Recognition and Dirty Work

Recognition theory, especially that of Honneth, underscores the relational nature of dignity, respect and esteem at work (Hill, 2001) as ‘the reproduction of social life is governed by the imperative of social recognition’ (Honneth, 1995: 92). Honneth’s theorising commences with the assumption that the development of self-confidence, self-respect and self-esteem are mainly achieved intersubjectively through processes of mutual recognition. He maps the various forms of reciprocal recognition ‘onto different levels of practical relation-to-self’ (Honneth, 1995: 93). He later outlines three fundamental conditions, or patterns, for establishing recognition relationships. The first two are ‘love’ (leading to self-confidence) and ‘legal’ recognition (leading to self-respect). However, most pertinent to our discussion is Honneth’s third condition, which concerns the social esteem and ‘achievement recognition’ that people seek to gain through work.

Honneth’s achievement recognition has been predominantly drawn on in relation to emancipation through work (Groutsis et al., 2020), looking into the effect of recognition practices on worker motivation (Tweedie, 2020) or how the withdrawal of recognition might provoke subversion and resistance (Mahalingam and Selvaraj, 2022). In this manner, this literature departs ‘from the conventional wisdom of an economic focus . . . informed by a utilitarian logic, and . . . extends the non-economic lens by exploring the emancipatory motives of work experience’ (Groutsis et al., 2020: 865). Instead of a utilitarian logic, it draws attention to ‘the role that interpersonal recognition plays in activating worker identity and agency’ (Hill, 2001: 444) and the forms of emancipation and resistance that emerge from an individual’s search for meaningful work (Groutsis et al., 2020; Laaser and Karlsson, 2022).

Drawing on this and related arguments, ‘dirty work’ researchers frequently insist that gaining respect and satisfaction remains possible for those who are devalued (Deery et al., 2019). These studies point to the versatility of those carrying out this difficult and unpleasant work in deploying reframing mechanisms and esteem-enhancing strategies to gain a more positive meaning and a sense of oneself (Bailey et al., 2019; Laaser and Karlsson, 2022). For example, men involved in physical work might reinforce a positive identity by celebrating norms of working-class masculinity and the need for physical strength and endurance (Ashforth and Kreiner, 2014; Tracy and Scott, 2006). In sum, this research emphasises the appeal to identity-affirming norms, as expressed through a variety of worker responses (McCabe and Hamilton, 2015).

Yet there remains a need to interrogate the emancipatory emphasis that this literature adopts, with its relative neglect of the way that workers’ experience and interpretation is shaped by broader social relations that can be profoundly unequal in social status, value and prestige (Lara and Fine, 2007). From this perspective, Fraser’s critique of Honneth opens a useful space to move beyond a predominantly ‘psychocultural’ preoccupation and consider other factors contributing to status subordination and marginalisation.

Re-framing Recognition (Fraser and Honneth)

The conversation between Honneth and Fraser in Redistribution or Recognition?: A Political–Philosophical Exchange, encapsulates the desire of both scholars to rethink Critical Theory in relation to the changing nature of demands for justice. For Honneth, it implies a shift from mainly demands for economic equality to struggles for recognition of group identities. For Fraser, this shift to recognition is a cause for concern as it might lead to masking economic inequality and representational disparity.

Honneth’s focus points towards the subjective, psychological and cultural aspects of human interactions since these processes are seen as central to identity formation and self-realisation. ‘One can develop a practical relation-to-self’, notes Honneth, ‘only when one has learned to view oneself, from the normative perspective of one’s partners in interaction’ (Honneth, 1995: 92). When recognition is withdrawn, we suffer from misrecognition, fuelling our struggle for recognition.

Fraser, in contrast, is critical of the identity model of recognition because of its overreliance on a ‘moral – psychological’ theory of the person (McNay, 2008). For her, ‘social status’ (Fraser, 2001: 24) is equally fundamental to recognition struggle, where status denotes the relative standing of social actors, such that a higher social status tends to routinely enhance the credibility of any demand for recognition. In this context, Fraser refers to the ‘misrecognition or status subordination’ that occurs where some actors are commonly regarded as inferior, excluded or invisible (2001: 24). Misrecognition represents ‘the wrong in social relations, not in individual or interpersonal psychology’ (Fraser, 2001: 27, emphasis added). In other words, misrecognition results from the prevention of participation as an equal peer in social life because institutionalised patterns of cultural value portray one’s occupational, or social, group as comparatively undeserving of esteem. As importantly, ensuring this parity of participation requires attention to economic mechanisms, including pay and job security, as well as consideration of the bounds of justice, and whose interests count (Fraser, 2007).

Status Fixity and Polarisation (Neckel and Reckwitz)

For reasons of space, it is beyond the scope of the present article to offer an extensive analysis of Reckwitz and Neckel’s work. Instead, we wish to focus on an area where their arguments coalesce, namely their conclusion that the labour of post-industrial societies is becoming increasingly polarised. In particular, we will consider how this polarisation might interfere with struggles for recognition.

Both scholars agree that we are witnessing ‘polarized post-industrialism’ (Reckwitz, 2021: 85), characterised by an increasing disparity between the ‘winners’ of the post-industrial ‘knowledge economy’ (Reckwitz, 2021: 88) and those minimally qualified, who are likely to suffer socio-economic decline and cultural devaluation. As Reckwitz writes, though the ‘post-industrial economy’ is ‘highly heterogeneous’, there nevertheless remains a ‘clear tendency toward the working world becoming polarized between the knowledge-based and cultural labour of highly qualified people on the one hand and the routinized services performed by the so-called service class on the other’ (Reckwitz, 2021: 132). For Reckwitz, these processes of polarisation do not just signal an increasing disparity in income and wealth, but also reflect the culturalisation of inequality, as some groups’ lifestyles and viewpoints are culturally praised, such as highly qualified knowledge workers, while those of low-skill workers are seen as having limited social value. These experiences of devaluation, as Reckwitz notes, translate into pessimistic feelings among low-skill workers about the possibility of future life improvement or changes in perceived social status (Reckwitz, 2021).

In a similar vein, Neckel (2020) draws attention to the growing fixity of social status, especially in relation to the globally expanding low-skilled service sector. As Neckel puts it, these workers experience an ‘apparently unalterable social position’ (2020: 479). From Neckel’s perspective, though contemporary capitalism appears to offer ‘opportunity’ and the promise of ‘professional advancement’ (2020: 479) and status improvement, there are increasingly large areas of the labour market where this represents an illusion.

If we apply Reckwitz and Neckel to the existing debate about recognition processes, it suggests that the socioeconomic shift towards polarisation may undermine the likelihood of the culture of reciprocal social obligation desired by Honneth (a ‘society of equals’) as well as the conditions for parity of participation central to Fraser’s thinking.

Research Context and Participants

The pandemic presented an exceptional example of how cultural and symbolic meanings, and the status attached to certain essential jobs, appeared to have been, at least temporarily, rethought, as formerly ‘invisible’ workers became ‘seen’ and judged ‘essential’ to societal functioning. To explore this unique context further, we set out to revisit sites in London that had been researched in a previous, pre-pandemic study (Slutskaya et al., 2023). The pre-pandemic, ethnographic study combined participant observation and in situ interviews with 53 refuse collectors, road sweepers, litter pickers and graffiti removers to explore the juncture of the material and the symbolic in dirty workers’ experiences. Consideration of the Fraser–Honneth debate was sparked by emergent findings relating to workers’ accounts of social bracketing and withdrawal of recognition. These ideas partially informed the framing of the current project and led us to revisit some previous sites with the aim of investigating how the pandemic affected the recognition and experience of key workers involved in waste management.

Revisiting previous sites is increasingly deployed in qualitative research as it can facilitate building trust (Fujii, 2017) and exploring changes over time (Saldaña, 2003). For instance, we were interested in how public initiatives to recognise key workers (e.g. ‘public clapping’) during the pandemic, which were unknown pre-pandemic, might have influenced experiences of recognition during and after the pandemic. In addition, revisiting previous sites can enable researchers to explore connections between the ‘micro’ and ‘macro’ (Neal and Flowerdew, 2003), including individuals’ experiences within a rapidly changing sociopolitical context (Vincent, 2013) as characterised pandemic era society.

The present study took place between the first and the second lockdown (2020) and after the end of the second lockdown (2021). The London councils we accessed in the original study were again contacted via phone and e-mail to ensure managers’ consent to carry out the study. However, it was not possible to revisit all the original research sites because of risk assessment guidelines during the pandemic lockdowns. Overall, 42 interviews (24 in London and 18 in southeast England) were conducted across the two previous sites in London, and two new sites located in southeast England. London and the South East share similarities regarding wealth distribution, with the highest paying jobs concentrated in these areas (Xu, 2023), and the highest level of insecure and low-paid work in both locations (Creagh, 2023).

All sites had a similar demographic profile and occupational coverage to the original study. Purposive sampling also ensured that all participants had sufficient experience of working in their current (or similar) roles pre-pandemic. Participants had worked for their respective council authorities for between five and 40 years. Reflecting the predominant composition of this workforce, all participants were male and 96% were White. In the UK, 97.4% of people working within on-street refuse and salvage are men (Office for National Statistics, 2018) and the majority are White (95.4%) (Office for National Statistics, 2018).

Looked Down On, Again

From Honneth’s perspective, a sense of marginalisation may be at least in part reduced by a promise of mutual dependence, and an understanding of ‘each other’s function in the social lifeworld’ (Honneth, 2012: 63). Drawing on Honneth (2001), the increase in key workers’ perceived importance and public visibility during the pandemic might therefore be expected to increase this mutual understanding, and, thereby, challenge the devaluation of these workers, and call into question or challenge their pre-existing status. In contrast, however, most respondents did not think that the new forms of recognition prompted by the pandemic would produce a long-lasting effect on their status, as reflected in a general scepticism and comments such as: ‘as soon as the pandemic sort of eases off, it (recognition) will disappear, it all be back to normal’ or ‘people have got short memories’:

In the pandemic they were clapping us right, now they treat you like dirt again, . . . you get abuse, you get threatened, we did the bulky bins around the corner, we had silly little notes in the bins threatening us, calling us lazy bastards, we’ve heard it all . . . (dustcart driver)

In response to the question about what constituted ‘the normal’, workers expressed their concerns about the deteriorating status of public services and the increasingly negative perceptions of those carrying out physical work. The majority felt that their growing experiences of disrespect and misrecognition went beyond ‘simply being looked down on’ or ‘being shouted at’. Participants’ views seemed to reflect social values presenting public services as inconvenient and inefficient social burdens (Hutton and Paddison, 2014). They referred to such comments from the public as ‘we are paying your wages and you’re sitting around smoking or something . . .’ or ‘clearing rubbish is basic work, you should be grateful you have a job’. Thus, workers’ apprehension about their status echoed Fraser’s concern about the ‘status injuries’ (Fraser, 1998: 2) resulting from such negative attributions as being ‘lazy’, ‘not very clever’, or overpaid and underworked:

the concept of it all is that, because you work for the Council, you don’t work hard; they see council workers as shirkers . . . once a stigma is attached to a certain job, it’s very, very difficult to clear that stigma . . . (litter picker)

Fraser argues that ‘the economy is always already permeated with cultural interpretations and norms’ (1998: 44). Similarly, workers in our study commented on how continuous cultural downgrading of public services was taking place alongside austerity-driven economic cuts to council budgets that, in turn, led to downsizing, intensification and precaritisation. These organisational changes were experienced as eroding the status and the working conditions of those involved in waste collection. Since the sites were already inadequately resourced, coping with the pandemic was not helped by the operational difficulties resulting from pre-pandemic budget cuts:

I think it’s basically got worse here because the austerity and the cutbacks. I mean, there’s only so much you can cut off the cloth. You can’t cut no more. (dustcart driver)

Now employment is based on zero hours, part-time work, extremely low pay . . . people who say, you’re lucky to have a job, that is wrong, that is man’s or a person’s given right to have labour . . . (litter picker)

Taken together, our participants remained doubtful that they might be successful in gaining more social recognition. In particular, the pandemic did not result in a revisiting of the status order that relegates those in waste management jobs to the bottom of the status hierarchy, through such negative sociocultural attributes as being lazy, unintelligent, uneducated, or lacking the ambition, skills or abilities to perform any other tasks. Indeed, answers to questions about the long-term effect of the pandemic generally suggested disillusionment and resignation: for example, ‘Long-term? No, because they ain’t going to appreciate, they don’t appreciate what you do for a living, don’t be silly.’

In sum, participants’ comments lent further support to Fraser’s argument about the need to challenge the ‘institutionally anchored and systematically subordinating’ cultural socio-economic patterns that devalue the contribution of many service workers (Zurn, 2003: 522). In this way, our findings highlight the ‘injustices of status’ (Fraser and Honneth, 2003: 54) consequent upon four decades of neoliberal, socio-economic ‘re-ordering’ (Law, 1994), with its weakening of the economic and cultural positioning of public service institutions, and those employed by them (Libal and Kashwan, 2020). In this manner, our study supports Fraser’s (2001) suggestion that a pre-existing low social status undermines the credibility of one’s demands for recognition.

How Can We Feel on a Par with Others?

Participants also questioned what it meant to be ‘truly recognised’ and ‘feel on a par with other fellow subjects’ when the pandemic failed to delegitimise the prevailing recognition order. In particular, many expressed frustration, and sometimes anger, over their low pay and job precarity:

one of the loaders printed how much he earns a year and posted it . . ., it went from that . . . people need to realise what we actually earn . . ., oh, nobody in this day and age should be getting paid so little and . . . (loader)

For Fraser (2007), participatory parity goes beyond avoidance of disrespect since it implies a just distribution of material resources, reflected in access to secure work, housing, leisure time and social activities. Yet our participants repeatedly referred to their constant anxiety about money and job security. Feeling ‘more esteemed’ was undermined by the challenges of ‘living on very little’. Unaffordable house prices, high rent and cuts in housing benefits led to increases in pressing bills, and exacerbated the frustration about pay:

Nothing has changed since the pandemic. Well, when I pay for my rent and that it’s basically near enough all my wages, it’s straightaway gone . . . (litter picker)

I think to, if you want my honest opinion, I think that our jobs here don’t get paid enough to live on if you want to be blunt, it will never change . . . (litter picker)

The erosion of communities and the separation of families were also experienced by workers as an additional form of exclusion:

The more that the rents are going up is making it extremely hard for normal working-class people to live there, with the government cut backs on housing benefit they’re literally forcing people out, . . . where the rents are cheaper, which I think is wrong because it breaks families up because they have to move . . . (litter picker)

Participants commented on how not having enough money circumscribed their participation in social life and community activities. Owing to falling incomes and mounting costs, workers struggled to get involved in such social activities as visiting families who lived away, or relatives in hospital, as well as birthday celebrations or taking holidays:

I can’t remember how long when I last had a holiday . . . all the kids have gone away at different times and I’ve got my girls, ‘dad, are we gonna go on holiday?’, you know, all the other kids coming back showing off their tans and stuff, and that’s a big thing for my eldest daughter, you know, all the other kids are brown and I’m like ‘no, no, we’ll go next year’ and it’s ‘you say that every year dad’. (cage vehicle driver)

These experiences support Fraser’s argument that workers’ sense of being on a par with their fellow citizens is closely linked to the distribution of material resources. In particular, gross disparities in access to work and housing, income or leisure time meant that our participants could not truly interact with others as ‘peers’ (Fraser, 2007). In this sense, the downplaying of economic factors in dominant accounts of recognition does appear as a ‘tragic loss’ (Fraser, 2007: 338) since it distorts our understanding of recognition struggles (Zurn, 2005).

Two Worlds, Even Further Apart

Yet the experience of the pandemic suggests that we need to look beyond Fraser’s sense of status parity to fully understand the processes that may interfere with recognition struggles. Many in this study felt that the pandemic showed that they had no choice but to accept the fact that their low status might never change, reflected in such caustic comments as, ‘now things are easing off we’re the arseholes of the planet again . . .’. In this sense, what gets recognised is not simply a function of social contribution, but it tends to reflect ‘the social structures . . . that depend on the rank he or she occupies in a status system’ (Neckel, 2020: 480):

I think that because the way that society is nowadays, if you’ve got a job with money, you’re elite and people look up to that . . . they look at people like road cleaners . . . and they think you’ve got nothing . . . we’re not important to them. It’s like their man servant sometimes, you know . . . it’s like, big fish and the little fish. When the pandemic is over it will be the same. (litter picker)

As importantly, workers in our study felt that any possibility of coming together through understanding ‘each other’s function in the social lifeworld’ (Honneth, 2012: 63) was severely undermined by the unequal consequences of the pandemic among disparate groups. In Reckwitz and Neckel’s terms, the pandemic exposed the polarisation of people’s experiences: some people took more risks, some less, some had choice, some did not, some thrived, some suffered, some died.

Participants commented on the difference in social groups’ capacity to distance themselves from the unpleasant and the contagious:

They are at home, comfortable. We get nothing. No, nothing. Not even, ‘Oh, we’ll give you a couple of days, like a couple of days extra as your holiday so you can recover and that’, nothing. (litter picker)

In answer to the questions about these challenges of ‘banding together’, waste collectors commented on how the pandemic was another illustration of manifold (and growing) societal divisions. Workers listed such things as second homes where those in white-collar jobs could escape to avoid Covid-19, especially as some of the council management had moved outside of the city for safety. In contrast, those on agency contracts ‘didn’t even get the option’, as one refuse collector put it. Participants also observed that ‘getting no option’ was also true about nurses, carers, bus and subway drivers, those working at supermarket checkouts and all those who lived in overcrowded housing.

Many were convinced that those wearing the uniform and performing ordinary, repetitive, low-paying and low-skilled tasks were increasingly perceived as servants in a society that is chiefly devoted to the promise of individual achievement and financial success:

Well, some people, once they are educated, they get a suit and tie on . . . they think they’re the bee’s knees, you know, . . . They believe we’re just there, almost like a servant, you know, and, and that changes as you go through the borough though, so you’ll probably get that attitude more at the . . . end of the borough, more affluent people there and the more middle-class type people. (litter picker)

Workers talked about what Reckwitz (2021) refers to as an intensified socio-structural dualism and an increasing distance between cultural subgroups:

I don’t like this, you know, and it’s, the Borough’s completely divided but it’s divided on every single line – you have the rich people that, you know, have their property and their way of life and the way they do things and they, oh, they don’t see us . . . nobody mixes is the vision across the whole Borough with every single thing that you do. (cage vehicle driver)

The quotes above resonate with Reckwitz’s and Neckel’s stress on polarised post-industrialism characterised by ‘polarization of incommensurable social positions and segmentation of social statuses’ (Neckel, 2020: 477, emphasis added). In sum, for our participants, the pandemic made the divisions of lifestyle, life opportunity and social position yet more tangible.