To See Ourselves As Others See Us? Incorporating the Constraining Role of Socio-Cultural Practices in the Theorization of Micropolitical Resistance

• Published in: Gender, work, and organization Vol. 22; no. 1; pp. 16 - 35
• Main Author: Dick, Penny
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.01.2015
• Subjects: Cultural differences; Everyday life; Feelings; Guilt; Identity; Law enforcement; micropolitical resistance; Part-time employment; Police; police women; police work; Political dissent; Practice; professional part-time working; Professionals; Qualitative analysis; Qualitative research; Resistance; Social impact; Sociocultural Factors; Studies; subject positions; Subjectivity; United Kingdom; Values; Workplaces; United Kingdom > UK
• ISSN: 0968-6673; 1468-0432
• DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12062

In this paper, I explore micro‐political resistance (defined as resistance at the level of meanings, identity or subjectivity) within the context of professional part‐time working. Using Skeggs' (1997) notion of dialogical recognition, which refers to an individual's identification with negative portrayals of the social categories to which they belong, I argue that in transgressing dominant (and taken‐for‐granted) workplace norms, part‐time professionals experience guilt and a sense that they may not be fulfilling their professional obligations. Based on a qualitative study of part‐time working in the UK police service, I show how part‐time professionals navigate these feelings by both drawing attention to the instrumental value of conforming to certain work‐based norms, specifically long hours, and by refusing deployment to tasks and roles that they see as peripheral to their professional identities. It is through such refusals, I argue, that the micropolitical resistance I illustrate in this paper can be understood as effective because of its impact on how everyday routines are performed.