Critical reflection on strategies for widening acceptance to emancipatory sociology engaging with employers and workers in The Good Jobs Project

Fitzhugh, Helen, Woodard, Ritchie and James, Andrea (2025) Critical reflection on strategies for widening acceptance to emancipatory sociology engaging with employers and workers in The Good Jobs Project. Critical Sociology. ISSN 0896-9205 (In Press)

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Abstract

This article offers a critical reflection on The Good Jobs Project: a multi-phase qualitative project and an attempt at fostering symbiotic transformation (a ‘win-win’ for employers and workers) via emancipatory sociology from within a business school. The project attempted to involve workers and employers in improving the experience of work for low-paid public-facing workers (in retail, hospitality and care). In attempting emancipatory research in an engagement space heavily characterized by contemporary capitalist norms such as transactional and individualized interaction, we identified and reflected on dilemmas around ‘securing access’ to research with employers and workers, ‘value proposition framing’ to motivate stakeholder involvement and the importance of ‘prompting judgement’ as part of the emancipatory intent of the work. Our discussion draws on concepts of utopian sociology (Wright, Levitas) to explore strategies addressing the necessary ‘mess’ of a research practice attempting to resist reproducing transactional norms for knowledge exchange between academia and business.

Item Type:	Article
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Norwich Business School Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Economics Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Media, Language and Communication Studies
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Employment Systems and Institutions Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Film, Television and Media
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	10 Jun 2025 12:30
Last Modified:	10 Jun 2025 12:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/99431
DOI:	issn:0896-9205

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