Blaming and Forgiving during the Joint Negotiation of Work Practices/Norms in a Transient, Multilingual, Blue-Collar Workplace

Presentation by Daan Hovens (University of Maastricht).

Abstract

In this presentation, I present audio-recorded and video-recorded data that I have gathered during linguistic-ethnographic fieldwork in a metal foundry in the Dutch province of Limburg, on a walking distance from the Dutch-German border. The people working here have various L1s, such as Dutch, Limburgish, and German, as well as Arabic, Polish, Russian, and Turkish. The social relations between them are often characterised by transience, as many work in the foundry for a short period of time. The general question behind my presentation is how jointly negotiated work practices (or work norms) can emerge in such a constellation, in which speed and safety are of central importance. More specifically, I focus on the question how different agents do “blaming” and “forgiving” here, which I consider as means to construct work practices/norms.