On Being at Work: The Social Construction of the Employee

Inspired by the work of the philosopher Judith Butler, influenced by Marx’s theory of alienation and intrigued by theories of death, this book develops an anti-methodological approach to studying working lives. Distinctions are drawn between labour (the tasks we do in our jobs) and work (self-making activities that are carried out at the workplace): between the less than human, zombie-like laborer and the working human self. Nancy Harding argues that the experience of being at work is one in which the insistence on practising one’s humanity always provides a counter-point to organisational demands.

Nancy Harding is Professor of Organization Theory at Bradford University School of Management. She is currently writing a series of books on the social construction of, respectively, the manager (Routledge, 2003), the employee (Routledge, 2013), and the organization (forthcoming).