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Doing dirty research using qualitative methodologies: lessons from stigmatized occupations
Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management
... In the academic arena, this stigma is further compounded by the views that AA is a quasi-religious organization and is not an evidence-based treatment (Kelly, 2017). An already established trend in academia is to conduct research that is considered highly valuable and contemporary, for example studies using quantitative methods with large samples (Grandy, Mavin & Simpson, 2014). This kind of research is more likely to bring career advancements and job satisfaction, which leads to more value and support for this kind of research (Grandy et al., 2014;Simpson, Slutskaya, Lewis & Höpfl, 2012, pg. 1). ...
... An already established trend in academia is to conduct research that is considered highly valuable and contemporary, for example studies using quantitative methods with large samples (Grandy, Mavin & Simpson, 2014). This kind of research is more likely to bring career advancements and job satisfaction, which leads to more value and support for this kind of research (Grandy et al., 2014;Simpson, Slutskaya, Lewis & Höpfl, 2012, pg. 1). Moreover, individuals naturally desire to dissociate with what is stigmatized, and even when this kind of research is done it is often overlooked in public and academic discourse, as it is seen to have "low cultural priority" and little relevance (Grandy et al., 2014). ...
... This kind of research is more likely to bring career advancements and job satisfaction, which leads to more value and support for this kind of research (Grandy et al., 2014;Simpson, Slutskaya, Lewis & Höpfl, 2012, pg. 1). Moreover, individuals naturally desire to dissociate with what is stigmatized, and even when this kind of research is done it is often overlooked in public and academic discourse, as it is seen to have "low cultural priority" and little relevance (Grandy et al., 2014). ...
Background: Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is a community-based NGO that supports people with alcohol misuse concerns to achieve and maintain abstinence. Qualitative methods are best suited to investigate individual experiences of recovery in AA, since this typically involves not only abstinence from alcohol but also the global psychological growth of the whole person. Despite this, the growing body of qualitative research exploring individual experiences in AA has yet to be collated. Objectives: The aims of this paper were to systematically search for and critically review qualitative interview studies with AA members. Methods: A systematic database and citation search identified 21 articles published between 1977 and 2014. Two independent reviewers assessed each research report and extracted data pertaining to the findings and the methodological quality of the studies. Results: Major themes across the reviewed articles included 'rock-bottom' experiences and powerlessness, and identity and change processes in AA. Findings related to the methodological quality of the papers were both general to qualitative research and more specific to AA. Conclusions/Importance: Research in this field has been characterized by a relatively uncritical discovery of AA narratives among AA members and by a lack of methodological rigour, which is likely to perpetuate its negative standing in the context of academia, and therefore in public and political discourse. Overall, findings demonstrated a pressing need for high quality qualitative research on AA.
... Stigmatized work has also remained relatively understudied in the organizational development and behavior literature (Bolton & Houlihan, 2009;Grandy, Mavin, & Simpson, 2014). In a review of the research on stigmatized occupations, Grandy et al. (2014) theorized that stigmatized work has remained under-investigated for two primary reasons. ...
... Stigmatized work has also remained relatively understudied in the organizational development and behavior literature (Bolton & Houlihan, 2009;Grandy, Mavin, & Simpson, 2014). In a review of the research on stigmatized occupations, Grandy et al. (2014) theorized that stigmatized work has remained under-investigated for two primary reasons. ...
... Second, this study contributes needed research (Grandy et al., 2014) on the experience of a stigmatized occupation to the fields of organizational psychology, organizational development, organizational behavior, and human resource development. By illuminating a sometimesinvisible occupational group in organizations, this study may help guide future research agendas to investigate understudied and/or stigmatized occupations. ...
Experiencing work as meaningful has been linked to positive personal and organizational outcomes, such as increased engagement, job satisfaction, motivation, positive work behaviors, performance, and an overall sense of well-being (e.g. Lysova, Allan, Dik, Duffy, & Steger, 2019; Rosso, Dekas, & Wrzesniewski, 2010). However, while research seeking to explain the numerous factors that contribute to and result from the experience of meaningful work has proliferated, empirical studies directly investigating the lived experience of meaningful work in diverse occupational contexts are limited. Moreover, the lived experience of meaningless work and its relationship to the experience of meaningful work is not well understood.
For workers in stigmatized occupations – jobs relegated by society as physically, socially, or morally undesirable due to the nature of the work – theorists have proposed numerous unique barriers to the experience of meaningfulness, thereby putting these workers at an increased risk for negative outcomes, including disengagement, lower commitment, and low satisfaction (e.g. Ashforth & Kreiner, 1999; Blustein, 2011).
At the same time, direct inquiry into the lived experience of meaningful work in stigmatized occupations remains sparse. Hence, the purpose of this study was to better understand this experience. This was accomplished using a qualitative approach enacted through a descriptive phenomenological method to uncover what the experience of meaningful work was like for a group of university custodians. Drawing from emerging research (e.g. Bailey & Madden, 2017; Mitra & Buzzanell, 2017), the experience of meaningful work was assumed in this study to be tensional and necessarily linked to the phenomena of meaningless work and meaning-making in work. Consequently, these phenomena were also explored and related to the experience of meaningful work.
The descriptive phenomenological analysis resulted in the identification of common elements of the experiences of meaningful work, meaningless work, and meaning-making in work among university custodians. Meaningful work was experienced by each custodian and was characterized by enacting a learned positive approach to work, having and experiencing pride in the work, maintaining meaningfulness, experiencing ongoing external validation of the self and work, enacting kinds of ongoing self-validation, helping others, and developing positive and personal relationships. However, meaningless work was also experienced by each custodian and was characterized by experiencing degradation by others, losing a sense of self at work, experiencing threats to the craft of cleaning, doing repetitive and purposeless tasks, and having kinds of negative experiences with supervisors and management. The experiences of both meaningful work and meaningless work emerged as interwoven meanings in work and were experienced as temporary, volatile, and fluid phenomena.
This study adds to the body of meaningful work research and theory by clarifying how the construct of meaningful work is lived through in a stigmatized occupational context, and by exploring the phenomena of meaningless work and meaning-making in work and their relationship to the experience of meaningful work. Moreover, the study offers practitioners an understanding and awareness of the elements that may foster the experience of meaningfulness for workers in stigmatized occupations.
... I don't need that in my head! Group therapy was referenced by 14 of the 14 participants as the job duty that exceeded all other exposures in causing them to feel the transfer of taint (Grandy, Mavin, & Simpson, 2014). Interview Participant #8 talked about the feeling of physical contamination after witnessing group therapy sessions, "After these guys process, I feel like I need to go home and shower all the filth off of me." ...
... Another participant joked about "masturbation Wednesday" referring to the weekly group processing of masturbation habits. Fourteen of 14 participants cited the job duty of witnessing group therapy as exceeding all other exposures in leading to transfer of taint(Grandy, Mavin, & Simpson, 2014). Statements, such as, "I feel like I need to go home and shower all the filth off of me," expressed the dirtiness felt by the participants. ...
Thousands of employees provide care for violent sexual offenders, legally termed sexually violent predators (SVPs), in state and federal civil commitment facilities across the nation. Direct care providers, known collectively as psychiatric aides, comprise the largest sector of care givers in civil commitment facilities. Exposure to the abject histories of high security patients places caregivers at risk for emotional dysregulation. This hermeneutic phenomenological study was conducted to allow for the exploration of the lived experiences of 14 psychiatric aides who provide direct patient care to SVPs in a secure Midwestern civil commitment center. The central research question used to guide
the study was, How do psychiatric aides experience vicarious trauma related to working with SVPs in the secure civil commitment center? Transcripts from 10 in-depth interviews and content from four online qualitative surveys were analyzed using Moustakas’ (1994) modification of van Kaam’s (1959) analysis process. Three major themes emerged during analysis and included experiencing trauma symptoms, the concept of dirty work, and being unprepared for the work. This study reinforces the need for leadership in secure civil commitment centers to understand the traumatic stressors to which direct caregivers are exposed, as well as to implement strategies that promote a healthier workplace environment.
... Building upon the work outlined in this chapter, we suggest a number of avenues forward that will serve to further advance knowledge about morally stigmatized work and those who perform it. Our hope is that in the pursuit of any one of these avenues, researchers will unearth new insights to inform everyday practices, behaviors and policies in and around organizations, which will move us toward viewing morally stigmatized work(ers) as dignified and valuable (Grandy, Mavin, & Simpson, 2014). ...
... To redeem the tainted nature of their jobs, participants in Johnston and Hodge's (2014) study in the same way relied on their aptitude to complete gruelling, physically demanding and repulsive tasks, such as having to handle the bodies of those who have recently passed away. Simpson et al.'s (2014) study of butchers also highlighted butchers' ability to construct valued identities and neutralise their occupational taint by capitalising on their strength, endurance, shared skills and experience. Drawing the comparison between firefighters and correctional officers, demonstrated how for firefighters danger and sexuality were used as a status shield and a badge of honour. ...
... Dirty work research has documented experiences of invisible and neglected workers in organizational studies such as cleaners (Soni-Sinha and Yates, 2013), refuse collectors (Hughes et al., 2017), security guards (Hansen Löfstrand et al., 2016), slaughtermen (Baran et al., 2016), exotic dancers (Grandy, 2008), and so on, thereby going against the general trend of focusing on clean, good, and high skilled work (Bolton and Houlihan, 2009;Grandy et al., 2014). Despite the increased interest in dirty occupations, there is still much to understand about the experiences of dirty workers. ...
Drawing from in-depth interviews of cleaners employed in the cleaning industry in India, the study examines the ongoing process of constructing a positive identity among dirty workers. Cleaners respond to the intense identity struggles emerging from caste stigma, dirty taint, and precarity by constructing ambivalent identities. Cleaners’ identity work is constituted by the very identity struggles they encounter, and their efforts to negotiate stigmatized identities further create identity tensions. Apart from accenting the paradoxical duality inhered in identity work, the findings show how caste/class inequalities are reworked in a neoliberal milieu and reproduced in identity construction processes. The findings call attention to caste as an important social category in organizational studies that has implications for work identities, dirty work, and precarious work.
... Dirty work research has documented experiences of invisible and neglected workers in organizational studies such as cleaners (Soni-Sinha and Yates, 2013), refuse collectors (Hughes et al., 2017), security guards (Hansen Löfstrand et al., 2016), slaughtermen (Baran et al., 2016), exotic dancers (Grandy, 2008), and so on, thereby going against the general trend of focusing on clean, good, and high skilled work (Bolton and Houlihan, 2009;Grandy et al., 2014). Despite the increased interest in dirty occupations, there is still much to understand about the experiences of dirty workers. ...
... Building upon the work outlined in this chapter, we suggest a number of avenues forward that will serve to further advance knowledge about morally stigmatized work and those who perform it. Our hope is that in the pursuit of these avenue, researchers will surface new insights to inform everyday practices, behaviours and policies in and around organizations which will move us towards viewing morally stigmatized work(ers) as dignified and valuable (Grandy, Mavin, & Simpson, 2014). ...
Morally dirty work refers to organization, occupation or employment tasks regarded as sinful, dubious, deceptive, intrusive or confrontational. For those who perform such work (dirty workers), moral taint serves as a stain on the individual’s integrity, a defect of character that may stick even after the individual stops performing the work. Often such work can be simultaneously viewed in positive and negative terms, thus performed by individuals who, we suggest, can paradoxically be considered both saints and sinners. In this chapter, we explain what we understand by moral taint and the implications at the individual, group and organization levels. We discuss what we provocatively refer to as the most obvious sinners (e.g., casino workers, HIV/AIDS/addiction caregivers, genetic termination nurses, border patrol agents), the sometimes sinners (e.g., correctional officers, truckers, private detectives), and new and surprising sinners (e.g., bankers, nursing as pornography, secretaries). We conclude with areas for future research.
... In relation to the latter, this involved working with participants who were typically not accustomed to talk centring on self-disclosure, and who were evidentially constrained by their own assumptions associated with social positioning: holding back on revelation and self-reflection, sometimes remaining entirely silent on certain issues. It was a concern with the epistemological importance of rapport in social scientific inquiry that ultimately underpinned our participation in the special issue "Doing Dirty Research" edited by Grandy et al. (2014). Our own recent research on working class men doing "dirty work" made it apparent that fear of negative evaluation and participants' suspicion of researchers' motives, restricted and limited verbal exchanges initially leaving more contentious issues undiscussed. ...
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to offer an account of the personal experiences of being involved with the journal of Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, to review the themes and issues stemming from the work that the authors think most pertinent, and to highlight those topics that the authors consider to contain the greatest future promise and potential.
Design/methodology/approach
– Reflective piece.
Findings
– The piece demonstrates how the discussion pursued in this journal has prompted a rethink of what qualitative research entails, how it might be assessed and evaluated, how it might be extended and reimagined, and of its enduring value to the development of knowledge about organisations and management.
Originality/value
– The paper offers an account of personal experiences of being involved with the journal of Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management.
... Our purpose here is to first give an overview of research published in QROM over the past ten years that has provided rich accounts of hidden and marginalised groups and experiences. We then summarise the unique contributions of the research covered in our special issue of QROM in 2014 (Grandy et al., 2014). ...
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to reflect on how QROM has become an outlet that gives voice to de-valued and marginalised work/research and those who undertake it. The authors present an overview of the research published in the journal over the past ten years that has provided rich accounts of hidden and marginalised groups and experiences. The authors also summarise the unique contributions of the research covered in the special issue the authors co-edited on doing dirty research using qualitative methodologies: lesson from stigmatized occupations (volume 9, issue 3).
Design/methodology/approach
– The authors adopt a literature review approach identifying key pieces covered in QROM that surface various forms of qualitative methods employed to illuminate the everyday practices of “Other” occupations, individuals and groups; experiences situated outside of the mainstream and often hidden, devalued and stigmatised as a result.
Findings
– The authors conclude that the articles published in QROM have demonstrated that in-context understandings are critically important. Such studies offer insights that are both unique and transferable to other settings. A number of invisible or hidden issues come to light in studying marginalised work/ers such as: the hidden texts, ambiguities and ambivalence which mark the experiences of those marginalised; that stigmatised work/research is embodied, emotional and reflexive; and, that expectations of reciprocity and insider-outsider complexities make the research experience rich, but sometimes uncomfortable.
Originality/value
– The authors review the research published in QROM over the past ten years that contributes to understandings of work, research and experiences of those who are often de-valued, silenced and marginalised in mainstream business and management studies.
Despite the considerable interest in researcher reflexivity within the organizational literature, little attention has been paid to participant reflexivity, here defined as the reflexive considerations of research participants that are stimulated by their involvement in research. Our argument is that engagement in the research process is a context where such reflexive thinking is likely to happen and that through certain methodological approaches, participant’s reflexive thinking becomes more conscious and therefore potentially accessible to the researcher. In identifying the participant reflexivity that emerged as part of a photo-elicitation study of work-life balance and conflict, we outline the kinds of reflexive dialogue that participants’ reported as being stimulated by involvement in the research and explore the link between emotion and reflexive practice. Hence our paper contributes to our understanding of qualitative research and reflexivity first by highlighting empirically the kinds of internal dialogue reported when participants engage in self-reflexivity as part of the research process; second by outlining how we can access participant reflexivity methodologically including through emotions; and third by explicating the value for researchers in accessing participant reflexivity.
Keywords: Reflexivity; participant reflexivity; photo-elicitation; qualitative; work-life balance; daily / episodic research/ diaries
This article reviews the growing literature on dirty work, i.e., work that is seen as disgusting or degrading and argues for a more “embodied” understanding of such work. It points to a tendency in the literature to focus on the nature of the task or role and on social and moral dimensions of the work at the expense of its material and embodied aspects. The latter are discussed through three, interrelated themes: “embodied suitability” whereby forms of dirty work are seen as suitable for some “working bodies” and not for others; “staining” which is presented as both a material and a symbolic process; and the role of work practices in both supporting and undermining ideological constructions around the work. The article concludes by arguing for a more comprehensive approach which includes both the material and the symbolic into accounts of such work.
This chapter seeks to bring bodies and embodiment into understandings of dirty work. Drawing on Bourdieu, it highlights the significance of the body and of embodied dispositions and practices; the interrelations between gender, class, and race; and the simultaneity of the material and the symbolic in understandings and experiences of such work. We review the main sources of literature and highlight current theoretical approaches. We present the argument that dirty work needs to be understood, not just as a task or role, but as grounded in prevailing social, cultural, and discursive practices and how such work cannot be divorced from the meanings (e.g. around gender, class, race) attached to the bodies of workers. Further, we seek to show the ways in which the materiality of dirt is implicated in how dirty work is encountered and managed. Thus, while dirt has a moral dimension as disorder and ‘matter out of place’ (Douglas 1966), it also marks physical bodies and shapes lived experiences. We seek to place emphasis on the embodied and the material as well as the symbolic in dirty work, rather than assigning primacy to the discursive, a dominant orientation within current accounts.
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