Stories from the Global Staffroom: Experiences of Caring and Uncaring Architectures at work with Effy Harle and Jos Boys

Abstract

Learning from the work of artist and maker, Effy Harle and cofounder of The DisOrdinary Architecture Project, Jos Boys, Manual Labours (Sophie Hope and Jenny Richards) critically examine an excerpt of their conversation from the podcast series The Global Staffroom Podcasts which reflects on experiences of and relationships to the staffroom both as a concept, virtual and physical space. In dialogue with intersectional feminist theory, architecture theory and social reproduction theory we consider the architecture of the staffroom in different workplaces and its tensions as a space for oppression and exclusion but also transformation, collectivity and solidarity. We conclude advocating for oral and intersectional analyses of the staffroom to intervene in its reproduction within a wage-based racial capitalist framework, and as a way to uproot it from the notion of a fixed workplace and worker: to build a staffroom for a post work imaginary that foregrounds care on the basis of our differential needs and desires.

Keywords:

• office architecture
• labor studies
• social reproduction
• staffrooms
• practice-based research
• care work

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Jos Boys, Effy Harle, and all the contributors to The Global Staffroom, and Julie-Ann Delaney and Liv Laumenech at the University of Edinburgh Art Collection.

Notes

1. Manual Labours, “The Global Staffroom Podcast,” https://manuallabours.co.uk/todo/the-global-staffroom/ (accessed March 11, 2021).

2. Manual Labours is our practice-based research project exploring physical and emotional relationships to work. Since 2013 we have carried out research with workers in different sectors, including UK based call center workers, people working with complaints, commuters and cultural workers. Each phase of the research culminates in a published manual, which you can download from our website at www.manuallabours.co.uk (accessed April 13, 2021).

3. For legislation in the UK on rest breaks during working time see UK Government, Working Time Regulations 1998, Part II, 12, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/1833/contents/2003-04-06 (accessed March 11, 2021).

4. See Manual Labours, Manual Labours Manual #4: Building as Body (London: Cultural Democracy Editions, 2018). Available online: https://manuallabours.co.uk/labour/phase-4-building-as-body-2017-18/ (accessed March 11, 2021).

5. Jos Boys and Zoe Partington, The Disordinary Architecture Project, www.disordinaryarchitecture.com (accessed 11 March 2021).

 6. See for example: One Stop English, “Survival Guide: Surviving the Staffroom” https://www.onestopenglish.com/methodology-tips-for-teachers/survival-guide-surviving-the-staffroom/554073.article (accessed March 10, 2021); Lara van Lelyveld, “The Dos and Don’ts of Surviving Your First Week in a New School,” The Guardian, September 2, 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2015/sep/02/dos-and-donts-surviving-first-week-new-school (accessed March 10, 2021) and Staffroom Education, “Staffroom Survival,” https://www.staffroomeducation.co.uk/news/staffroom-survival (accessed March 10, 2021).

 7. Economies of Exhaustion: The Ethics of Academic, Architectural, Artistic Labour on 5 February 2020 at The Bartlett School of Architecture, London.

 8. To listen to the whole podcast please visit: manuallabours.co.uk/todo/the-global-staffroom

 9. ‘Bodyminds’ was coined as a term by Margaret Price to undo the assumed body-mind split in everyday language. Margaret Price, “The Bodymind Problem and the Possibilities of Pain”, Hypatia 30 (2015): 268–284.

10. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, “Misfits: A Feminist Materialist Disability Concept,” Hypatia A Journal of Feminist Philosophy 26, no. 3 (2011): 591–609.

11. For information about Matrix see Jos Boys, Anne Thorne and Fran Bradshaw, Matrix Open Feminist Architecture Archive, http://www.matrixfeministarchitecturearchive.co.uk/ (accessed March 11, 2021).

12. Kathi Weeks, The Problem with Work (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2011).

13. Eric Sundstrom and Mary Graehl Sundstrom, Work Places: The Psychology of the Physical Environment in Offices and Factories (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 270.

14. Paul Keedwell, Headspace: The Psychology of City Living (London: Aurum Press, 2017), 253.

15. Sarah Pink, Melisa Duque, Shanti Sumartojo, and Laurene Vaughan, “Making Spaces for Staff Breaks: A Design Anthropology Approach,” Health Environments Research and Design Journal 13, no. 2 (2020).

16. Michelle Murphy, Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty. Environmental Politics, Technoscience, and Women Workers (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2012), 47.

17. Ibid., 48.

18. Alison Hirst, “Settlers, Vagrants and Mutual Indifference: Unintended Consequences of Hot–Desking,” Journal of Organizational Change Management 24, no. 6 (2011): 767–788 and Rucco Palumbo, “Let Me Go To The Office! An Investigation into the Side Effects of Working from Home on Work-Life Balance,” International Journal of Public Sector Management 33, no. 6/7 (2020): 771–790.

19. Manual Labours, Manual Labours Manual #3: The Complaining Body (London: Cultural Democracy Editions, 2016). Available from: https://manuallabours.co.uk/manuals/manual-labours-manual-3/ (accessed April 13, 2021).

20. Nicola Slawson, “Death of the School Staffroom – Lack of Space or Divide and Conquer?” The Guardian, 13 March 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/mar/13/school-staffroom-england (accessed March 11, 2021).

21. Ibid.

22. Manual Labours, Manual Labours Manual #4.

23. Ibid.

24. Garland-Thomson, “Misfits.”

25. Marie-Louise Richards, “Hyper-Visible Invisibility: Tracing the Politics, Poetics and Affects of the Unseen,” Field Journal 7, no. 1 (2018): 39–52. To hear more about Marie-Louise Richards’ work and research listen to Manual Labours, “Episode 16: Marie-Louise Richards,” The Global Staffroom Podcast, 25 August, 2020, https://manuallabours.co.uk/podcast/episode-16-marie-louise-richards/ (accessed April 13, 2021).

26. Murphy, Sick Building Syndrome.

27. Ibid., 35–36.

28. A critcal point discussed during the Barlett Interntional Lecture Series, “Exploring Feminist Design Practices Then and Now” with Torange Khonsari, Maria Venegas Raba, Lesley Lokko, Jos Boys and Manual Labours (online, February, 10, 2021).

29. Manual Labours, “Episode 14: Care and Curating,” The Global Staffroom Podcast, 20 July, 2020, https://manuallabours.co.uk/podcast/episode-14-care-and-curating/ (accessed April 13, 2021).

30. Diane Agrest, “Architecture from Without: Body, Logic and Sex,” in Gender, Space and Architecture (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 359.

31. Leopold Lambert, “Architectural Theories. A Subversive Approach to the Ideal Normaitzed Body,” The Funambulist (2012). Available from: https://thefunambulist.net/architecture/architectural-theories-a-subversive-approach-to-the-ideal-normatized-body (accessed March 11, 2021).

32. Ibid.

33. Richards, “Hyper-Visible Invisibility.”

34. Mabel O. Wilson in the symposium: Critical Dialogues on Race and Modern Architecture, at Columbia GSAPP, New York, 26 February, 2016 https://youtu.be/_nLLhiyN2xc (accessed May 30, 2017).

35. Richards, “Hyper-Visible Invisibility.”

36. Manual Labours, “Episode 3: Independent Workers of Great Britain,” The Global Staffroom Podcast, Recorded 4 May, 2020, https://manuallabours.co.uk/podcast/episode-3-independent-workers-union-of-great-britain/ (accessed April 13, 2021).

37. Ruth Wilson Gilmore states: “‘Capitalism Requires Inequality and Racism Enshrines It,” in Geographies of Racial Capitalism with Ruth Wilson Gilmore. An Antipode Foundation film directed by Kenton Card (2020) https://antipodeonline.org/geographies-of-racial-capitalism/

38. For recent testament to this see: Anon, “Evan Ifekoya ‘Withdraws Labour’ from Goldsmiths College Claiming ‘Institutional’ Racism,” in Art Review, 16 June 2020. https://artreview.com/evan-ifekoya-withdraws-labour-from-goldsmiths-college-claiming-institutional-racism/ (accessed March 11 2021). For more info on the racial pay gap see: Payscale, “The Racial Pay Gap Persists in 2020.” https://www.payscale.com/data/racial-wage-gap (accessed April 13, 2021).

39. Filipa Pajević, “The Tetris Office: Flexwork, Real Estate and City Planning in Silicon Valley North, Canada,” Cities 110 (2021): 103060.

40. Sargant Florence, “Industrial Fatigue,” The Economic Journal 27, no. 105 (1917): 74–78.

41. For example, the 2010 Agency Worker Regulation fought for by TUC states that, “access to all facilities and amenities provided for directly employed workers such as canteen, staffroom, childcare facilities, sporting and social facilities, etc. Employers must provide objective justification for blocking access.” Agency Workers Regulation 2010 Guidance, UK Government, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/841981/agency-workers-regulations-2010-guidance.pdf (accessed March 11, 2021).

42. Manual Labours, “Episode 3: Independent Workers Union of Great Britain,” The Global Staffroom Podcast, 4 May 2020, https://manuallabours.co.uk/podcast/episode-3-independent-workers-union-of-great-britain/ (accessed 11 March 11, 2021).

43. Manual Labours, “Episode 15: Romily Alice Walden,” The Global Staffroom Podcast, 6 July 2020, https://manuallabours.co.uk/podcast/episode-15-romily-alice-walden/ (accessed March 11, 2021).

44. Manual Labours, “Episode 6: Parenting and Pedagogy with Jo Bardsely and Maddalena Fragnito,” The Global Staffroom Podcast, 25 May 2020, https://manuallabours.co.uk/podcast/episode-6-parenting-and-pedagogy-with-jo-bardsely-and-maddalena-fragnito/ (accessed March 11, 2021).

45. The Care Collective, The Care Manifesto (London: Verso, 2021).

46. Manual Labours, “Episode 6.”

47. Ibid.

48. The Care Collective, The Care Manifesto.

49. Angry Workers, Class Power on Zero-Hours (London: PM Press, 2020).

50. Manual Labours, Manual Labours Manual #4.

51. Weeks, The Problem with Work.

52. Jane Rendell, “(Un)doing it Yourself: Rhetorics of Architectural Abuse,” The Journal of Architecture 4 (Spring 1999): 101–110.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Manual Labours (Sophie Hope

Manual Labours Sophie Hope and Jenny Richards is a practice-based research body exploring physical and emotional relationships to work. Since 2013 we have carried out research with workers in different sectors, including UK based call center workers, people working with complaints, commuters and cultural workers. Our methods include workshops, performances, reading groups, film screenings, writing collaging, and artists commissions. Each phase of the research culminates in a published manual, which you can download from our website at www.manuallabours.co.uk

Sophie Hope is a lecturer and practice-based researcher at Birkbeck, University of London in the Film, Media and Cultural Studies Department. Her work is often developed with others through the format of devised workshops exploring subjects such as art and politics in the year 1984, physical and emotional experiences of immaterial work, stories people tell about socially engaged art commissions and the ethics of employability in the creative industries. Recent projects include: Meanwhile in an Abandoned Warehouse with Owen Kelly, 1984 Dinners, Manual Labours (with Jenny Richards), Social Art Map and Cards on the Table.

Jenny Richards)

Manual Labours Sophie Hope and Jenny Richards is a practice-based research body exploring physical and emotional relationships to work. Since 2013 we have carried out research with workers in different sectors, including UK based call center workers, people working with complaints, commuters and cultural workers. Our methods include workshops, performances, reading groups, film screenings, writing collaging, and artists commissions. Each phase of the research culminates in a published manual, which you can download from our website at www.manuallabours.co.uk

Jenny Richards research focuses on the politics of work, health and the body, often developed through collaborative and collective practice. She is a doctoral candidate on the KTD programme at Konstfack and KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Her project 'Against the Outsourced Body' examines the effect and resistance to the expansion of commercialized, individualized and outsourced care. She was previously co-director of Konsthall C, Stockholm where together with Anna Ahlstrand and Jens Strandberg they developed Home Works, an exhibition programme exploring the politics of domestic work and the home. Manual Labours, initiated in 2012 is an ongoing collaborative research project with Sophie Hope investigating physical relationship to work.