ABSTRACT
This chapter develops an ethnographic analysis of the forms of subjectivity that arise among industrial workers confronted with the restructuring of their jobs. It inquires into the action-orientations that workers themselves adopt in response to the "normative turn" that so many firms have taken. The chapter seeks to sketch the outlines of an action-theoretic perspective toward work and social inequality. The conceptual and theoretical suggestions find their empirical grounding within a deeply traditional branch of the US economy — that of the forest products industry — which provides an especially opportune site for the purposes at hand. The chapter presents the three major action-orientations. The first two — the most common responses in author's analysis — invited the reproduction of hierarchical authority. Only the third, exceptional response encouraged significant transformation in this respect. The action-orientation found expression in many distinct but interrelated themes.
