Naslov
Researching women’s class position through work biographies: women and labour in Croatia

Autori
Barada, Valerija ; Primorac, Jaka

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Izvornik
The 36th International Labour Process Conference: Class and the Labour Process - Book of Abstracts / - , 2018, 4-4

Skup
The 36th International Labour Process Conference: Class and the Labour Process

Mjesto i datum
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 21.03.2018. - 23.03.2018

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
class, stratification, women, labour, biography, individual, structural position, interviews, qualitative research

Sažetak
For over two decades research into class stratification in Croatia has been rather neglected. This can mostly be attributed to political reasons connected to changes from socialism to capitalism: the pre-1990s dominant Marxist use of class went out of favour in the new political set up. Importantly, the few studies that have been conducted on the class distribution of the general population, apart from the typical socio-demographic data, still have failed to address the particularities of social position of women, namely the intersection between class and gender. This paper aims to redeem this absence in social class research in Croatia by intersecting women’s work biographies and their class positions. Inspired by the work of Beverly Skeggs (2002) on the formations of class and gender and Carolyn Steedman’s (1986) “Landscape for a good woman”, we define class as not just a socio-economic- cultural category, but rather as a thoroughly gendered trait which is both structural and individual. The intersection of these elements is evident in life-course biographies which in the case of women usually mean researching their family life. However, in order to avoid the essentialization of women’s lives, we find that this intersection becomes especially clear and empirically and theoretically rich through female work biographies. Since women, arguably, get social recognition only by participating in labour market, paid work is a legitimate frame for investigating the complexities of their class position. That said, in order to grasp the dynamics of gendered female class positions, we define work as all of the everyday activities, and not only those that are paid. Used as an encompassing concept that does not even out women’s social positions, work biographies tend to accentuate both the similarities and differences of female class positions. This paper is based on preliminary results from a three-year (2016-2019) mixed methods research project „Social stratification in Croatia: structural and subjective aspects“ (funded by the Croatian Science Foundation), which is the first major project on class stratification in Croatia since the late 1980s. The paper is focused on findings from narrative interviews conducted with more than 30 adult women (for interview protocols McAdams’s (1993) technique of nuclear episodes was used and adjusted). The interviewees were recruited after conducting a national-wide questionnaire thus providing for a maximal variation of research sample in both the social and labour position of women, as well as their regional geographical dispersion. This sampling method ensures that the socio- biographical specificities and inequalities of women of different class positions emerge in diverse and interesting ways.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Sociologija

POVEZANOST RADA