Dawn Lyon is Lecturer in sociology at the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent. She studies fishmongers, building work, migration and career narratives.
January 22, 2012 Organised Labour
November 13, 2011 ‘The Changing Home’: Gertrude Williams’ Imagined Shifts in Domestic Work
In 1945, Gertrude Williams published Women and Work (part of the New Democracy Series, Nicholson and Watson, London), questioning ‘women’s place’ in the post-war industrial world in which many ‘cherished prejudices have been turned topsy-turvy’ (1945: 9). I came across a copy of this book for the first time just a few weeks ago, and…
November 8, 2011 Customer Service through Loyalty or Disaffection
At 11am this morning, the phone rings. Someone has tried to buy nearly three hundred pounds worth of ‘women’s country clothing’ online in my name (not a very likely scenario). A salesperson was alerted by something about the difference and distance between the alleged buyer (me) and the delivery address (in Glasgow). It’s part of…
October 4, 2011 A Long Day
It’s the afternoon rush hour on the London tube. There are at least three people asleep in the row of seats opposite me, the physical impact of work (I’m assuming) visible in their faces and postures. It’s already been a long day.
August 25, 2011 Tescos at Night
Tuesday night in North London. The pub is already shut despite 24-hour drinking. We head to a Tescos Extra store, bright lights and bustle whatever the hour. Late evening shopping has peaked but the place is still busy. It’s workers rather than shoppers that predominate now. In the first isle, music is blaring, helping to…
March 5, 2011 Work Redone
A few months ago, I posted a piece on the website about work undone. A fire destroyed some trees, a fence, a shed and a car opposite my mother’s house as the neighbourhood watched. After a while, we got used to seeing the blackened fence (what was left of it) and the exposed trunk of…
January 3, 2011 Working in the Family Tradition
‘When I first came to the caffè as a child, I thought it was a fantastic place!’ Davide recounts. ‘There were sweet jars on the bar, like those ones in the cupboard now, and ice-cream just over there where that counter is…’ Forty years on, Davide is running the place. He’s the third generation of…
December 14, 2010 Catching Tuna at Carloforte
‘There’s blood in the water for months,’ explains the tour guide at the Museo Civico di Carolforte. She’s been telling us about the mattanza, the traditional killing of blue-fin tuna (tonno rosso) in May and June each year as the fish swim past the Isola di San Pietro off the west coast of Sardinia on…
December 6, 2010 A Long Night and an Early Start: ‘La piccola pesca’ of Cagliari
Wednesday, 1 December I wandered down to the docks in Caglari tonight at around 6pm. Walking down Largo Carlo Felice, the main road from Piazza Yenne (sort of the centre of town), you know the water is there because of the view of the ferries (and on some days, cruise liners) above the horizon. Alongside…
October 29, 2010 Thirty Years on from ‘Women on the Line’: Researching Gender and Work, Panel Report from Work, Employment and Society Conference, Brighton, September 2010
The republication in 2009 of Miriam Glucksmann’s ethnography of factory work, Women on the Line (originally published in 1982 under the pseudonym, Ruth Cavendish) was the starting point for a panel discussion on researching gender and work at the Work, Employment and Society Conference, which took place in Brighton in September 2010. I approached Miriam…