Concerning labour markets and the commodification of social difference in the Alberta oil sands
In this thesis, I consider ethnographic conversations I had during fieldwork in Fort McMurray and Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, in 2016 with two sets of workers: Albertan trades-workers employed in the oil sands (pipe-fitters, welders and boilermakers) and Filipino/a Temporary Foreign Workers (TFWs) em...
Main Author: | |
---|---|
Format: | Thesis |
Language: | English |
Published: |
University of British Columbia
2018
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/2429/64437 |
id |
ftunivbritcolcir:oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/64437 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftunivbritcolcir:oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/64437 2023-05-15T16:17:39+02:00 Concerning labour markets and the commodification of social difference in the Alberta oil sands MacArthur, Ewen 2018 http://hdl.handle.net/2429/64437 eng eng University of British Columbia Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ CC-BY-NC-ND Text Thesis/Dissertation 2018 ftunivbritcolcir 2019-10-15T18:24:54Z In this thesis, I consider ethnographic conversations I had during fieldwork in Fort McMurray and Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, in 2016 with two sets of workers: Albertan trades-workers employed in the oil sands (pipe-fitters, welders and boilermakers) and Filipino/a Temporary Foreign Workers (TFWs) employed in the local service sector (cooks, caregivers and kitchen helpers). I analyse these workers’ self-reflections on their own work routines as providing a sightline into the ways labour market processes and regulatory frameworks are manifest in and negotiated through their lives. I draw especially on the theories of Karl Polanyi and Karl Marx in my analysis. Through ethnography I also show how the labour market processes these thinkers analyse shape, and are shaped by, social differences they each tend to neglect (e.g. nationality, citizenship, migration status, race, ethnicity, gender), and which more recent post-colonial, feminist, and critical race theorists have emphasised. Hence from the Albertan context, I conceptualise how state-regulated labour markets re-fashion, and are re-fashioned by, the cultural identities of workers. I show how local labour market processes re-make and aggravate social differences between Albertan trades-workers and Filipino/a TFWs in Alberta, in ways that are not superficially or simply motivated by forms of discrimination (e.g. xenophobia, racism, sexism), but which nonetheless agitate and divide an emergent “precariat” (Standing 2011). I hope this thesis can provide the basis for further ethnographic and comparative research. Arts, Faculty of Anthropology, Department of Graduate Thesis Fort McMurray University of British Columbia: cIRcle - UBC's Information Repository Canada Fort McMurray |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
University of British Columbia: cIRcle - UBC's Information Repository |
op_collection_id |
ftunivbritcolcir |
language |
English |
description |
In this thesis, I consider ethnographic conversations I had during fieldwork in Fort McMurray and Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, in 2016 with two sets of workers: Albertan trades-workers employed in the oil sands (pipe-fitters, welders and boilermakers) and Filipino/a Temporary Foreign Workers (TFWs) employed in the local service sector (cooks, caregivers and kitchen helpers). I analyse these workers’ self-reflections on their own work routines as providing a sightline into the ways labour market processes and regulatory frameworks are manifest in and negotiated through their lives. I draw especially on the theories of Karl Polanyi and Karl Marx in my analysis. Through ethnography I also show how the labour market processes these thinkers analyse shape, and are shaped by, social differences they each tend to neglect (e.g. nationality, citizenship, migration status, race, ethnicity, gender), and which more recent post-colonial, feminist, and critical race theorists have emphasised. Hence from the Albertan context, I conceptualise how state-regulated labour markets re-fashion, and are re-fashioned by, the cultural identities of workers. I show how local labour market processes re-make and aggravate social differences between Albertan trades-workers and Filipino/a TFWs in Alberta, in ways that are not superficially or simply motivated by forms of discrimination (e.g. xenophobia, racism, sexism), but which nonetheless agitate and divide an emergent “precariat” (Standing 2011). I hope this thesis can provide the basis for further ethnographic and comparative research. Arts, Faculty of Anthropology, Department of Graduate |
format |
Thesis |
author |
MacArthur, Ewen |
spellingShingle |
MacArthur, Ewen Concerning labour markets and the commodification of social difference in the Alberta oil sands |
author_facet |
MacArthur, Ewen |
author_sort |
MacArthur, Ewen |
title |
Concerning labour markets and the commodification of social difference in the Alberta oil sands |
title_short |
Concerning labour markets and the commodification of social difference in the Alberta oil sands |
title_full |
Concerning labour markets and the commodification of social difference in the Alberta oil sands |
title_fullStr |
Concerning labour markets and the commodification of social difference in the Alberta oil sands |
title_full_unstemmed |
Concerning labour markets and the commodification of social difference in the Alberta oil sands |
title_sort |
concerning labour markets and the commodification of social difference in the alberta oil sands |
publisher |
University of British Columbia |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/2429/64437 |
geographic |
Canada Fort McMurray |
geographic_facet |
Canada Fort McMurray |
genre |
Fort McMurray |
genre_facet |
Fort McMurray |
op_rights |
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY-NC-ND |
_version_ |
1766003545985777664 |