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Learning from Small Change: Clerkship and the Labors of Convenience
Author(s) -
Whitelaw Gavin Hamilton
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
anthropology of work review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.151
H-Index - 15
eISSN - 1548-1417
pISSN - 0883-024X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1548-1417.2008.00021.x
Subject(s) - deskilling , lifeworld , ethnography , context (archaeology) , sociology , institution , pedagogy , social science , geography , work (physics) , anthropology , engineering , mechanical engineering , archaeology
Convenience stores are atop the list of global retail chains blamed for homogenizing landscapes, deskilling labor, and eroding local cultural difference. Further still, their very ubiquity and “nonplace”‐ness is said to challenge conventional modes of ethnographic inquiry. In the following article, I move beyond such broad assumptions by examining how the convenience store constitutes a meaningful lifeworld and culturally embedded economic institution. Drawing on my training and experiences as a clerk, I explore in particular how impersonal familiarity is constructed and contested within the context of this retail environment.