Rethinking Dignity in the Workplace: A Relational Approach

In this seminar, Laura will discuss her new book, Rethinking Dignity in the Workplace: A Relational Approach, published by Routledge in 2025.

Laura has said of this book, ‘This is not a political book. But it is critical. If, like me, you have spent much of the past few years watching the world news unfold with horror, you might have turned away and missed UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer’s recent proposal to encourage more people with disabilities to experience the ‘dignity of work’ by reducing their welfare payments.

On the opposite side of the Atlantic, the US government focus on 'efficiency' is challenging the very notion of a dignified and respectful relationship with employees in their approach to closure of whole civil service departments. It was not so long ago that being fired by text message by your boss in a private company was scandalous, but a lack of care for worker dignity now seems to be an everyday norm.

Narratives about the dignity and worth of people are closely tied to demands for human rights, and to historical attempts by fascist groups to dehumanise Others while elevating themselves. It’s a difficult time to expose this inner contradiction. When writing the opening to the introductory chapter of Rethinking Dignity in the Workplace in August I crafted a bold statement; 'We are not born in dignity but become dignified persons through the acknowledgements of others.' This contradictory paraphrase of the assertion in the Declaration of Human Rights, emphasises that in my view, this document (and scholarly references to it) as with other documented policies is not enough. It encourages a complacent assumption that dignity is enshrined in law and practice, unassailable. In fact it is only made so by actions that uphold it in relationships, with all such documents vulnerable to being swept away by 'expediency'. This radical rethink aims to provide a theoretical groundwork for a relational conception of dignity for interpretation and analysis of working relations between a heterogeneous mix of agents.

Chapters that Laura will discuss focus on autonomy, recognition and status, and the book overall draws on institutional theory and care ethics, though not necessarily in conventional ways.