Identity work at the intersection of dirty work, caste, and precarity: How Indian cleaners negotiate stigma
Abstract
Drawing from in-depth interviews of cleaners employed in the cleaning industry in India, the study examines the ongoing process of constructing a positive identity among dirty workers. Cleaners respond to the intense identity struggles emerging from caste stigma, dirty taint, and precarity by constructing ambivalent identities. Cleaners’ identity work is constituted by the very identity struggles they encounter, and their efforts to negotiate stigmatized identities further create identity tensions. Apart from accenting the paradoxical duality inhered in identity work, the findings show how caste/class inequalities are reworked in a neoliberal milieu and reproduced in identity construction processes. The findings call attention to caste as an important social category in organizational studies that has implications for work identities, dirty work, and precarious work.
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Biographies
Avina Mendonca is an Assistant Professor, Organizational Behaviour, Indian Institute of Management Nagpur, India. Her primary research interests include dirty work, identity at work, gender and organizations, workplace bullying and trolling.
Premilla D’Cruz is Professor, Organizational Behaviour, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, India. Her research interests include workplace bullying, emotions at work, self and identity at work, technology and work, informal work, and whistleblowing at work. She is the section co-editor of Labour Relations and Business Ethics, Journal of Business Ethics.
Ernesto Noronha is Professor, Organizational Behaviour, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, India. His research interests include employment relations and globalization, technology and work, workplace diversity and inequality, workplace dignity, and workplace bullying. He is the section co-editor of Labour Relations and Business Ethics, Journal of Business Ethics.
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Article first published online: March 17, 2022
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