Elizabeth Gaskell: An overlooked political economist and proto theorist in the field of industrial relations

IF 3.9 1区 社会学 Q2 MANAGEMENT
Kristin S. Williams
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Abstract

This polemical essay argues that Victorian novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, and her novels North and South, and Mary Barton, portray her as an overlooked, early political economist. The objective of the paper is three-fold: (1) to dismantle taken-for-granted truth claims that Alan Fox is the preeminent thinker on pluralistic forms of employee engagement (2) encourage further development and enlargement of the field and what constitutes its history, and (3) to argue for the recognition of Elizabeth Gaskell as an early political economist. Guiding this exploration is the question: How do we also make sense of Fox’s privileged situatedness in scholarship and the absence of potential early theorists like Gaskell? The paper adopts a feminist reading and polemical writing to engage in feminist critical historiography. The author draws on audience theory to help readers reorient themselves to Gaskell and to help see her as an overlooked political economist. Feminism is conceptually presented as ontology, epistemology, method, and style of writing. Despite the ongoing credit Alan Fox receives as first theorizing the frames of reference and pluralistic forms of engagement starting in the 1960s, Elizabeth Gaskell was contemplating and critiquing the employment relationship starting in the 1850s. She not only provided a rich historical understanding of the inequalities of class and wealth, but her ideas and insights remain unacknowledged in industrial relations scholarship. The paper offers a unique feminist perspective on Elizabeth Gaskell and makes the case that she is neglected early political economist. Further, the paper makes a link between the world of Victorian era fiction as historical understanding of early capitalist society and demonstrates how ideas are taken up by the field in unconscious and unjust ways.

Abstract Image

伊丽莎白·盖斯凯尔:一位被忽视的政治经济学家和劳资关系领域的原始理论家
这篇论战性的文章认为,维多利亚时代的小说家伊丽莎白·盖斯凯尔(Elizabeth Gaskell)和她的小说《南方与北方》(North and South)以及《玛丽·巴顿》(Mary Barton)将她描绘成一位被忽视的早期政治经济学家。本文的目标有三个方面:(1)驳斥艾伦·福克斯是研究员工敬业度多元化形式的杰出思想家这一想当然的事实;(2)鼓励这一领域的进一步发展和扩大,以及它的历史构成;(3)主张承认伊丽莎白·盖斯凯尔(Elizabeth Gaskell)是一位早期的政治经济学家。引导这一探索的问题是:我们如何理解福克斯在学术上的特权地位,以及盖斯凯尔等潜在的早期理论家的缺席?本文采用女性主义阅读和论战写作的方式进行女性主义批判史学研究。作者利用受众理论来帮助读者重新定位盖斯凯尔,并帮助读者将她视为一位被忽视的政治经济学家。女性主义在概念上表现为本体论、认识论、方法和写作风格。尽管Alan Fox在20世纪60年代首次提出了参考框架和多元参与形式的理论,但Elizabeth Gaskell从19世纪50年代开始就在思考和批评雇佣关系。她不仅对阶级和财富的不平等提供了丰富的历史理解,而且她的思想和见解在劳资关系学术界仍未得到承认。这篇论文提供了一个独特的女权主义视角来看待伊丽莎白·盖斯凯尔,并证明了她是被忽视的早期政治经济学家。此外,本文将维多利亚时代的小说世界与早期资本主义社会的历史理解联系起来,并展示了思想是如何以无意识和不公正的方式被该领域所接受的。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
11.50
自引率
13.80%
发文量
139
期刊介绍: Gender, Work & Organization is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal. The journal was established in 1994 and is published by John Wiley & Sons. It covers research on the role of gender on the workfloor. In addition to the regular issues, the journal publishes several special issues per year and has new section, Feminist Frontiers,dedicated to contemporary conversations and topics in feminism.
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