Programme full

Theory
W323, HAMISH WOOD BUILDING
Thursday 16 April 2015 13:30 - 15:00
PAPER SESSION 5
WHITHER HISTORY AND COMPARISON IN UK SOCIOLOGY?
To know where we are going, we must first understand where we have been. As the conference this year seeks to
grasp ‘Societies in Transition’, the need for historical and comparative methods and theories is more pressing than
ever. Yet, these approaches are relatively underrepresented in UK sociology, compared to the USA or relative to other
disciplines such as International Studies. This special event aims to foster a revived discussion of the importance of
history in sociology. Organised as an open roundtable discussion, a small group recruited by the BSA Historical and
Comparative Sociology group will initiate an open conversation about the state of historical and comparative
approaches in UK sociology, future prospects for their reinvigoration, current trends in historical and comparative
research, and the value of encouraging historical consciousness throughout the discipline. Our aim is to provide a
context for those interested in these approaches, especially students, to learn more and raise new questions, agendas
and concerns.
Work, Employment and Economic Life 1
A005, GOVAN MBEKI BUILDING
A ‘Hochschild’ for the Guys? Men’s Emotional Repertoires in Interactive Services
Simpson, P.
(University of Manchester)
Men remain poorly understood as emotional beings. This think-piece examines theorizing about men as emotional
actors both in personal life though mostly in interactive service work. I contest opposing accounts based on
assumptions of men as emotionally alienated (Seidler 2005) and as unproblematically emotionally reflexive (Anderson
2009). To advance a research agenda emphasizing masculine emotional repertoires, I go beyond theories of
emotional alienation as indicated in Hochschild's (1983) seminal study of women's emotional labour in service work. I
recognize ambivalence in men's emotional self-expression at work (Fineman and Sturdy 2001) and opportunities for
agency (Bolton and Boyd 2003) and limited resistance to corporate/company ideology and rules (Wray-Bliss 2001).
Whether they refer to alienation, ambivalence or agency, male employees' accounts are not necessarily reducible to
false consciousness and challenge the distinction between authentic and alienated emotional labour presumed in the
work of Seidler (2005) and the work that has followed from Hochschild's original study.
Contested Meritocracy: The Discourse of Merit in Contemporary Chinese Organisations
Yan, J.
(University of Bielefeld)
Although scholars suggest a broader societal rise of meritocracy for determining socioeconomic rewards in China, the
meritocratic principle has not led to greater social equality. Rather, social inequality is on the rise. Has China become
a society of achievement or is meritocracy only a myth? Beyond this question, this paper asks how the role of
meritocracy is being articulated in contemporary Chinese organisational lives. This paper focuses on two generations
of Chinese professionals working in Western multinational corporations. They are the first professional group who has
grown up in a system largely disconnected from the socialist egalitarianism, nepotism, and political virtuocracy and
their social advancement has been pushed on by the expansion of white-collar jobs and trainings in Western
multinational corporations. Based on the discursive analysis of 31 career narratives, this paper provides insights into
the contradictions between their cultural belief in meritocracy and their experienced reality. Focusing on the discourse
of merit we have a rather much better understanding of the changing access to material benefits, social resources,
and privileges in contemporary Chinese society. Moreover, it reveals that these professionals´comparisons of
themselves with other Chinese privileged groups and Western expatriates gives them an increasing feeling of
deprivation and identity threat. What follows is the expression of two very different emtions; envy and resentment,
which have become characteristic of Chinese professionals working in Western multinational corporations.
191 BSA Annual Conference 2015
Glasgow Caledonian University