ABSTRACT
It is unfortunate that many people use the term ‘theory’ in a derogatory manner to refer to ideas that do not effectively connect with human practices in the world. Facts about work, some people say, are interesting and useful but once we start to ‘get theoretical’ we start to become self-indulgent and irrelevant. However, once we recognise that sociological theories are essentially attempts to make sense of how society ‘works’, the nonsense of this becomes apparent. Indeed, ‘facts’ about society and work activities cannot really exist separately from the theoretical frames of reference within which they are expressed. How could we in subsequent chapters, for example, talk about the ‘facts’ of work security and insecurity without a theory of what constitutes ‘security’ and ‘insecurity’ in this context. How can we consider the extent to which the world is in fact ‘globalising’ without some reference to theories of globalisation? How can we even talk about ‘work’ and ‘society’ in a theory-free way? The way we conceptualised work and society earlier in this chapter was the start of the broader process of theorising the role of work activities and experiences in modern societies (and, yes, we will have to theorise ‘modern’ at the appropriate stage). The point of all of this is to deepen our understanding of what is going on in the world of work. Surely such an appreciation is valuable to all of us in shaping our social practices.
