Library Catalog
Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

A World of Work : Imagined Manuals for Real Jobs / ed. by Ilana M. Gershon.

Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextPublisher: Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2015]Copyright date: ©2015Description: 1 online resource (248 p.) : 12 halftonesContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780801456428
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 331.7 23
LOC classification:
  • GN448.5 .W67 2015
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Letter to A Young Malawian Doctor -- 2. What You Need to Know to Be a Fish Farmer in West Norway -- 3. How to Be a Magician in Paris -- 4. Being a Village Court Magistrate in Papua New Guinea -- 5. The Chaplain. Being a Physician of the Soul in a Secular Age -- 6. Being a Crime Scene Technician in Sweden -- 7. Playing Piano Without a Piano in Bolivia -- 8. Making Do in Perpetual Crisis: How to Be a Journalist in Buryatia -- 9. How to be a Professional Organizer in the United States -- 10. The Character in Question. How To Design Film Costumes In India -- 11. Reflections from a Life on the Line. How To Be A Factory Worker -- 12. How to Be a Cell Phone Repair Technician -- 13. Becoming a Professional Wrestler in Mexico City -- 14. The Pains and Peaks of Being a Ballerina in London -- Afterword -- Contributors
Summary: Ever wondered what it would be like to be a street magician in Paris? A fish farmer in Norway? A costume designer in Bollywood? This playful and accessible look at different types of work around the world delivers a wealth of information and advice about a wide array of jobs and professions. The value of this book is twofold: For young people or middle-aged people who are undecided about their career paths and feel constrained in their choices, A World of Work offers an expansive vision. For ethnographers, this book offers an excellent example of using the practical details of everyday life to shed light on larger structural issues.Each chapter in this collection of ethnographic fiction could be considered a job manual. Yet not any typical job manual—to do justice to the ways details about jobs are conveyed in culturally specific ways, the authors adopt a range of voices and perspectives. One chapter is written as though it was a letter from an older sister counseling her brother on how to be a doctor in Malawi. Another is framed as a eulogy for a well-loved village magistrate in Papua New Guinea who may have been killed by sorcery.Beneath the novelty of the examples are some serious messages that Ilana Gershon highlights in her introduction. These ethnographies reveal the connection between work and culture, the impact of societal values on the conditions of employment. Readers will be surprised at how much they can learn about an entire culture by being given the chance to understand just one occupation.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780801456428

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Letter to A Young Malawian Doctor -- 2. What You Need to Know to Be a Fish Farmer in West Norway -- 3. How to Be a Magician in Paris -- 4. Being a Village Court Magistrate in Papua New Guinea -- 5. The Chaplain. Being a Physician of the Soul in a Secular Age -- 6. Being a Crime Scene Technician in Sweden -- 7. Playing Piano Without a Piano in Bolivia -- 8. Making Do in Perpetual Crisis: How to Be a Journalist in Buryatia -- 9. How to be a Professional Organizer in the United States -- 10. The Character in Question. How To Design Film Costumes In India -- 11. Reflections from a Life on the Line. How To Be A Factory Worker -- 12. How to Be a Cell Phone Repair Technician -- 13. Becoming a Professional Wrestler in Mexico City -- 14. The Pains and Peaks of Being a Ballerina in London -- Afterword -- Contributors

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Ever wondered what it would be like to be a street magician in Paris? A fish farmer in Norway? A costume designer in Bollywood? This playful and accessible look at different types of work around the world delivers a wealth of information and advice about a wide array of jobs and professions. The value of this book is twofold: For young people or middle-aged people who are undecided about their career paths and feel constrained in their choices, A World of Work offers an expansive vision. For ethnographers, this book offers an excellent example of using the practical details of everyday life to shed light on larger structural issues.Each chapter in this collection of ethnographic fiction could be considered a job manual. Yet not any typical job manual—to do justice to the ways details about jobs are conveyed in culturally specific ways, the authors adopt a range of voices and perspectives. One chapter is written as though it was a letter from an older sister counseling her brother on how to be a doctor in Malawi. Another is framed as a eulogy for a well-loved village magistrate in Papua New Guinea who may have been killed by sorcery.Beneath the novelty of the examples are some serious messages that Ilana Gershon highlights in her introduction. These ethnographies reveal the connection between work and culture, the impact of societal values on the conditions of employment. Readers will be surprised at how much they can learn about an entire culture by being given the chance to understand just one occupation.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Apr 2024)