Work in the shadow of finance: Rethinking Joan Acker's materialist feminist sociology

Abstract

To commemorate the life and work of Joan Acker, this article focuses on the jewel in the crown of her extensive oeuvre: ‘Hierarchies, Jobs and Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations'. I take as my focus the significance of ‘Hierarchies, Jobs and Bodies' for the development of theorizations of labour and especially for theorizations of post‐Fordist work and working. In so doing, I trace the impact of Acker's interventions across a number of bodies of research and sets of debates across the nearly three decades since its publication. But in addition to tracing this impact, I ask if the relevance of ‘Hierarchies, Jobs and Bodies' still holds today. Does this relevance still hold in a context where finance institutions rather than work organizations have emerged as the key institutions of societal discipline and control? In opening out this line of questioning my intention is to advance the broad project to which Acker was firmly committed, namely, the project of materialist feminist sociology.