The Clean World of Dirty Work: Actors, Technology, Social Relations

Abstract

This paper explores the importance of technology in the work of cleaning agents and implicitly of companies specialized in offering professional cleaning services. Understanding how dirt is part of society and how it is integrated into the concerns of major industries in the field is useful. Approaching dirt as unpleasant and its removal as denigrating are aspects deeply rooted in the cultural meanings of this work. The practices and ways in which cleaning is done with the help of technology are what make the work with dirt more honorable and less degrading. Dirty work seen through Everett Hughes’ concept of the “moral division of labor” can be understood as the existence of hierarchical distinctions within the profession of cleaning workers. Who has access to the use of revolutionary equipment? Are there limitations on their use? What kind of limitations? Treating technology as part of the cleaning process seems to be not immune to fear from users and compromises from companies. However, in some situations, it seems that the digitization of the cleaning process and the replacement of humans with robots will be just a happy and somewhat confusing dream that creates a rift between the dirty world of dirty work and the clean world of dirty work.