More Than Class: Studying Power in U. S. Workplaces

More Than Class examines the changing texture of power relations in U.S. workplaces, focusing on sites ranging from security booths to bedrooms to mining shafts, rather than the traditional shop floor. The contributors see class analysis as a powerful tool for thinking about and addressing inequalities at the core of U.S. economic and social organization. They also take a look at ways to use new approaches - e.g. analysis of the intersections of identity and empowerment or disempowerment through constructions of race, athnicity, and gender - to study subtle and not-so-subtle power relations in workplaces.

Booknews

These nine articles study the relationship of power in the US workplace by going beyond the traditional shop floor and class analyses. Taking as a starting point Foucault's idea that power is neither institution nor structure, but instead a "complex strategical situation in a particular society," the authors use a variety of approaches to analyze the nature of workplace power for such diverse groups as American Indian women artists, workers in a nuclear weapons complex, Mexicana household workers, female mine workers, and college cafeteria workers. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.