Working Knowledge: Skill and Community in a Small Shop - Hardcover

Harper, Douglas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226316882 ISBN 13: 9780226316888

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1987

Synopsis

A number of years ago, Douglas Harper moved to northern New York to teach in a small college. Upon his arrival there his department chairman noted his eight-year-old Saab and said, "You'll be meeting Willie." Haper spent the next years establishing not only a working relationship but a friendship with Willie. In Working Knowledge, he introduces us to Willie, a mechanic and jack-of-all-trades. With this engaging and insightful profile—part biography, part ethnography, and part photo essay—Harper documents what Willie does and how he does it. Harper's dignified portrait captures a disappearing feature of modern life—the essential human factor in the world of work.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

"Harper's portrait of Willie, the all-around craftsman, is more than an endearing one. It is a reflection on the role, good and bad, that technology, its use and misuse, has played in our lives. Working Knowledge is beyond nostalgia. It is a challenge for us to take a long hard look at where we are today in the matter of our life and our work."—Studs Terkel

About the Author

Douglas Harper is professor of sociology at Duquesne University. He is the author of a number of works of visual ethnography and visual sociology—works that use photography as an innovative adjunct to ethnographic description. His books includeGood Company, a much-acclaimed photographic portrait and narrative about tramps on the rails; Working Knowledge: Skill and Community in a Small Shop, a portrait of a mechanic and jack-of-all-trades;Changing Works: Visions of a Lost Agriculture, which explores the social world of dairy farmers in upstate New York;Hong Kong: Migrant Lives, Landscapes, and Journeys, a tour of the city’s postcolonial urban landscape; andThe Italian Way: Food and Social Life, on the role that food plays in the daily activities of Italians from all walks of life. All five of these books were published by the University of Chicago Press.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0226316882
• ISBN 13: 9780226316888
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 224