Doctoral student Rachel Wright (Syracuse University), supervised by Dr. John S. Burdick, will investigate new forms of oppositional consciousness among employees of nonprofit organizations in the United States. Nonprofit organizations are one of the largest and fastest-growing sectors of the American economy. Although types of nonprofits vary widely, this project focuses specifically on nonprofit organizations that provide social services, effectively filling the gap between government-administered social welfare programs and for-profit services in the free market. A site of a key tension in labor relations, these organizations are widely viewed as a haven for selfless and resilient employees, yet they are places of growing workplace inequality. This group of nonprofit organizations provides an ideal site for investigating the ways culture can be invoked and deployed to inhibit unionization and other forms of oppositional action, but they also provide an opportunity to grasp the processes that may lead to oppositional consciousness.
The research will be carried out in Memphis, Tennessee, over a twelve-month period. The researcher will interview a stratified random sample of program directors, managers, and coordinators in non-profit service organizations, as identified through published lists. She also will collect data through semi-structured interviews and participant observation in service organization activities.
Findings from this research will contribute to social science theory on work and labor by widening the ethnographic field to include non-union forms of resistance and by focusing on a group of workers with new types of grievances that have until now escaped study. This research is also timely in that recent social, demographic, and economic shifts have expanded the demand for many of the services that nonprofits provide. This increased demand has coincided with challenges such as staff turnover, effectiveness, and legitimacy with clientele that affect the work environment and the quality of services. The research will also support the education of a graduate student.
in Memphis, Tennessee. A key tension in U.S. labor relations, nonprofits are often cast as a haven for selfless and resilient employees, yet they can also be sites of growing inequality in the workplace. Still, employees rarely participate in unionization or other forms of collective action, especially in Southern cities like Memphis. This project poses the following core question: What conditions strengthen or weaken the development of oppositional consciousness? Nonprofit organizations are one of the largest and fastest-growing sectors of the US economy. At present, nonprofits employ nearly 10% of the workforce in the United States. The federal government distinguishes nonprofit organizations from their public and private counterparts through the 501(c)3 designation that allows them to accept what the IRS terms "charitable" or tax-exempt donations. Although types of nonprofits vary widely, this project focuses specifically on a sample from the 20% that I term nonprofit social service organizations (NSSOs), which increasingly fill the gap between government-administered social welfare programs and for-profit services in the free market. NSSOs provide a rich setting for investigating the ways culture can be invoked and deployed to inhibit individual and collective oppositional action, but they also provide a chance to grasp the processes that may give rise to oppositional consciousness. For the 2010-2011 academic year, I received an NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant to conduct research in Memphis, Tennessee. My research focused on seven small nonprofit organizations through which I met approximately 70 informants. I intentionally spoke with a mixture of high-ranking program directors, mid-ranking program managers, and low-level program coordinators since position within the organization corresponds to experientially different social relations of production. Of this group of 70, I recorded 66 interviews and conducted as many unrecorded second or third interviews. Since interviews were in English, my native language, I transcribed all recordings while in the field, which afforded me the opportunity to keep ideas and themes fresh, identify questions for follow-up with informants, and maximize any down time. For participant observation, I volunteered at several organizations each week and participated in monthly intra-organizational staff meetings and inter-organizational networking meetings. I participated in events and trainngs at two different local foundations, which provided insight into the ‘management’ side of nonprofits. Based on preliminary analysis, I suggest that the racialized organizational structure, increasing neoliberal scrutiny from funders, the valuation of family, Memphis’ unique historical and cultural context, and the culture of self-sacrifice contribute to the inhibition of oppositional consciousness but also engender, in certain categories of employees, oppositional action. This project articulates to several ongoing theoretical discussions on work and labor in anthropology and closely related disciplines in the following ways: I focus on a labor group that has largely escaped study in anthropology; I adjust the analytical lens to capture non-union forms of oppositional activity; and I examine the rewards and consequences of "care labor," especially for women. Another potential contribution, however, may not be as obvious. My research revealed isomorphism between the social relations of the workplace and discourses of poverty, deserving/undeserving citizenship, and welfare dependency. Power, money, resources, and senses of belonging correspond to a racialized and gendered continuum with black female employees positioned at one end and white male employees at the other. That is to say, organizational culture at these NSSOs in many instances were microcosms of the larger post-industrial U.S. society; learning more about organizations that work with the poor, may enrich our understanding of race, class, and gender in the United States. Finally, though this project is not applied in nature, my findings may also pose real-world solutions for the nonprofit sector itself. Recent social, demographic, and economic shifts have expanded the demand for many of the services that nonprofits provide. This increased demand coincides with challenges such as staff turnover, effectiveness, and legitimacy with clientele, which calls into question the prevailing training and management models. In sum, the nonprofit industry is in crisis. This project may enrich our understanding of the consequences of worker unhappiness and offer new solutions for the nonprofit sector.
