In the 1800s sanitation workers in the Nordics – often known as “Nightmen” – would collect waste and handle residue late at night to avoid “bothering” the city's residents. Potentially, the late-night working hours also served to guard the sanitation workers against public ridicule. But what is the situation today? Waste management is typically associated with stigma and low status. But someone has to do the job – most often men from the working class.
At the intersection of gender and class, this PhD project focuses on working class masculinities. What forms of masculinity and male roles are available to men in dirty jobs? And what strategies do they employ to deal with the proximity to others' waste? Are they carving out a space to construct a positive working-class masculinity within the confines of a dirty, low-status job?
To explore this, Lie will conduct fieldwork at various sanitation units in the municipality of Oslo, in addition to supplementary qualitative interviews. The sanitation workers’ stories about how they understand and perform their work will be a crucial focal point for data collection. In this way, the project aims to contribute to knowledge about forms of masculinity, the embodiment of class and gender, as well as occupational stigma and pride among workers in low-status dirty jobs.
