Richard Ocejo critically reflects on the rise of the creative class within today\u2019s \u201cnew economy,\u201d comprised of \u201cknowledge-, creativity-, and technology-based jobs for well-educated and culturally savvy workers, [who] wanted to bartend, in spite of their other job options, and, in some cases, the expectations their families had for them\u201d (xvii). Specifically, Ocejo looks at bartenders, butchers, barbers and distillers in New York City in an attempt to understand a new cultural phenomenon: upwardly-mobile, educated twenty-somethings who opt for traditionally working class jobs. This new workforce, as we discussed in class, is often over-educated for the jobs they choose. Does this mean that with our Bowdoin education, we shouldn\u2019t have jobs that we\u2019re overqualified for? Are we \u201ctaking\u201d those jobs away from someone else? And the large-picture question is: does this mean we\u2019re appropriating working class jobs, and is that a problem?<\/p>\n
In class, we discussed friends who graduate who find various service jobs, while they live as artists on the side. We then asked\u2014is this bad? Should we just become lawyers instead? There\u2019s a difference between not maximizing your \u201cpotential\u201d by selecting a job that you\u2019re overqualified for, and what Ocejo deems \u201cupscaling\u201d a job, which is \u201cascribing an exclusive status on them based on a new cultural understanding of how professionals in these fields should<\/em> work (xviii). Essentially, this notion is similar to gentrification of the workplace. When young, educated, workers with cultural capital, as Ocejo describes them, attain jobs that are traditionally skill-specialized, service jobs, they change the cultural understanding of these jobs. This phenomenon also occurs within gentrifying neighborhoods.<\/p>\n This narrative feels very familiar to me, especially with respect to my peers at Bowdoin in search for jobs that defy the expected trajectory of high-paying desk jobs in consulting or technology. The reason that I\u2019m particularly engaged with Ocejo\u2019s analysis of the creative class is because it feels deeply personal. His critical questioning of our generation has really forced me to confront my values, why they exist, and why<\/em> I\u2019m so drawn to become an artist, or a barista, or a waitress in my short-term future (to name a few jobs that I\u2019ve floated as temporary career paths). Is it a resistance identity, in some way, to choose a more skill-specific, light manufacturing job over the jobs that Career Planning encourages us to pursue? Partially, I think yes. This notion of choosing \u201clight manufacturing\u201d jobs illustrates the shifting value of \u201ccultural omnivores,\u201d in opposition to more overtly classed cultural tastes of previous generations.<\/p>\n Further, is the notion of a cultural omnivore problematic? On one hand, the cultural omnivore embraces cultural tastes of all kind, embracing qualities of both low and high culture. However, cultural omnivores also exist within a certain realm of privilege \u2013 they have the cultural capital that allows them to be able to embrace \u201clow\u201d culture, instead of relying on high culture as a class signifier. When applied within the context of upscaling jobs, cultural omnivores have the privilege to be able to opt for \u201clight manufacturing\u201d jobs, as opposed to jobs that may be more financially viable. They have security of their cultural capital and education to choose jobs that align more with their passions, like bartending or distilling, and even change the cultural value of that type of hands-on work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Richard Ocejo critically reflects on the rise of the creative class within today\u2019s \u201cnew economy,\u201d comprised of \u201cknowledge-, creativity-, and technology-based jobs for well-educated and culturally savvy workers, [who] wanted to bartend, in spite of their other job options, and, in some cases, the expectations their families had for them\u201d (xvii). Specifically, Ocejo looks at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cities-and-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-2202-fall-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}