Occupational Folklife

OCCUPATIONAL FOLKLIFE Occupational folklife is the cultural expression within the workplace that gives identity to a work group; forms include rituals, initiation rites, esoteric language, gestures, and group stories. Occupational folklife covers a wide range of shared experience, from the special skills and techniques required to successfully perform the work, to participation in customs intended to signify group membership. In preindustrial America, labor was most often thought of in terms of agricultural work, household labor such as spinning and weaving, and work performed by skilled artisans and tradesmen. Early research in occupational folklife tended to focus on the male-dominated outdoor trades, such as logging, mining, cowboying, and maritime work. With the growth of industry, labor began to be performed within larger enterprises, leading to an increase in group identification by occupation. Occupation-specific trade unions have provided another context in which to consider the folklife of the American worker. Much of the contemporary research has tended to analyze the workplace as a social setting where issues of work culture, class, ethnicity, gender, and organized labor intersect.