Representing affective labour and gender performativity in knowledge work
a multimodal critical discourse analysis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v10i3.32040Keywords:
multimodality, gender performativity, emotional labour, office design, knowledge workAbstract
This paper argues that a multimodal approach to critical discourse analysis makes visible how contemporary office design and furnishings prescribe gender performativities crucial to the labour of communicative capitalism (Dean 2005). Examining WWW-based promotional material produced by multinational contract furniture producers, a critical analysis is offered of the ways in which the open-plan office is represented as a wellspring of affective labour. First, attention is turned to detailing the kinds of social actors and their actions depicted in the representations of office work. Second, the kinds of interactional meanings produced in the videos are documented. Having established how these idealized representations of knowledge work highlight particular embodiments and actions, the paper then argues that the promotional materials are in fact constituting those ‘bodies that matter’ (Butler 1993) to communicative capitalism. Ultimately, these videos depict how the female knowledge worker must ‘cite’ a normative feminized affective worker so as to be recognized as a viable employee.
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Flusser, V. (1999) The Shape of Things: A Philosophy of Design. London: Reaktion.
Fortunati, L. (2007) Immaterial labor and its machinization. Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization 7: 139–57.
Global Contract (2012) Another Workday Begins. Video. Retrieved on 1 March 2016 from www.globalcontractbridges.com/video/theworkdaybegins.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1985) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold.
Hancock, P. and Tyler, M. (2007) Un/doing gender and the aesthetics of organizational performance. Gender, Work and Organization 14: 512–33.
Herman Miller (2010) Generations at work. Retrieved on 1 March 2016 from www.hermanmiller.com/research/research-summaries/generations-at-work.html.
Herman Miller (2011a) Design Yard. YouTube video. Retrieved on 2 March 2016 from https://youtu.be/NR-R9r5n5NM.
Herman Miller (2011b) Working Together. YouTube video. Retrieved on 1 March 2016 from https://youtu.be/BZSXV67C7bc.
Hochschild, A. R. (1983) The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Knoll (2015) Accela Case Study. Video. Retrieved on 1 March 2016 from www.knoll.com/design-plan/resources/media-bank?scform=true&parent=Videos&insert=true&size=&pList=null.
Kress, G. and Van Leeuwen, T. (2006) Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design (2nd edn). London: Routledge.
Lazar, M. M. (2007) Feminist critical discourse analysis: articulating a feminist discourse praxis. Critical Discourse Studies 4: 141–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17405900701464816
Machin, D. (2007) Introduction to Multimodal Analysis. London: Hodder Arnold.
Machin, D. and Mayr, A. (2012) How to Do Critical Discourse Analysis: A Multimodal Introduction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Machin, D. and Thornborrow, J. (2003) Branding and discourse: the case of cosmopolitan. Discourse and Society 14(4): 453–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0957926503014004003
National Office Furniture (2014) Creating Spaces. Video. Retrieved on 17 October 2016 from www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxmwsJQrbPg.
Schawbel, D. (2013) 10 ways millennials are creating the future of work. Retrieved on 2 March 2016 from www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2013/12/16/10-ways-millennials-are-creating-the-future-of-work.
SmithGroupJJR (2012) Workplace of the Future – What Is It? YouTube Video. Retrieved on 1 March 2016 from www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNsXOQU1ORY.
Teknion (undated) Towards new workplace paradigms: face to face love seat. Retrieved on 23 January 2016 from www.teknion.com/inspiration/product-design/pearsonlloyd---face-to-face-love-seat.
Tyler, M. and Cohen, L. (2010) Spaces that matter: gender performativity and organizational space. Organization Studies 31: 175–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0170840609357381
US Bureau of Labor (2015a) Labor force statistics from the current population survey: household data annual averages. 11. Employed persons by detailed occupation, sex, race, and Hispanic or Latino ethnicity. Retrieved on 11 July 2016 from www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm.
US Bureau of Labor (2015b) Management occupations. Retrieved on 21 July 2016 from www.bls.gov/ooh/management.
Van Leeuwen, T. (2008) Discourse and Practice: New Tools for Critical Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195323306.001.0001
Van Leeuwen, T. (2011) The semiotics of decoration. In K. L. O’Halloran and B. A. Smith (eds) Multimodal Studies Exploring Issues and Domains 115–28. New York: Routledge.
Weber, M. (1946) From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (ed. C. W. Mills and H. Gerth). New York: Oxford University Press.
Published
2016-12-20
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Roderick, I. (2016). Representing affective labour and gender performativity in knowledge work: a multimodal critical discourse analysis. Gender and Language, 10(3), 386-411. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v10i3.32040
