ABSTRACT
Previous and current literature provides a lucrative site for the analysis of the relationship between the public and firefighting. Within the fire service, popularised research to date has tended to concentrate on the front-line operational sector of the organization, and within this analysis the iconic image of the firefighter has traditionally carried connotations of bravery, danger, courage and physicality (see Baigent, 2001; Desmond, 2007; Ericson, 2011; ThurnellReid and Parker, 2008). The axis of Baigent’s (2001) thesis centres on constructions of firefighters’ masculinity illuminating sites of homosociality and the way new recruits learn to internalise the informal protocols within the watch culture. Thurnell-Read and Parker (2008) build on this to draw parallels between watch culture and working class male shop-floor culture and Tracy and Scott (2006) explore how firefighters manage social, moral and physical ‘taint’ in order to sustain their heroic image within the public domain and thereby sustain the masculine ideal (see also Hall, Hockey et al., 2007). Discussions around dominant forms of hegemonic constructions of masculinity inhabit much of the literature.
