[ecrea] CFP Professions at the Margins

>Call for Papers for an ephemera:
>Professions at the margins
>
>Issue Editors: Nick Butler, Shiona Chillas and Sara Louise Muhr
>
>Professions have become well-established at the centre of public life
>over the last one hundred and fifty years. But they also bear an
>intrinsic relation to the margins. The margins are to be understood
>here in the broadest possible sense ­ social, political, cultural,
>economic, geographical, and epistemological. The Special Issue seeks
>to conceptualize the relation between the professions and the margins
>in all of its various forms.
>
>While some occupations have succeeded in achieving high levels of
>professional recognition, others have found themselves languishing at
>the margins. Although medical doctors have attained a prestigious
>professional status, radiologists, theatre nurses and midwives have
>struggled to reap the same kind of social and economic rewards from
>their work (Freidson, 2007; Scott, 2008). Similarly, whereas personnel
>specialists in the UK were able to collectively organize and obtain a
>Royal Charter, management consultants have tried and failed to gain
>this official mark of distinction (Watson, 2001; Kipping, Kirkpatrick,
>and Muzio, 2006). The case of social workers, probation officers,
>massage therapists, spiritual mediums, and railway surgeons further
>attest to the range of failed attempts by various occupations to fully
>professionalize. We agree with McKenna (2008: 208) when he notes that
>the specific reasons behind the institutional failures of these
>potential professions are far more instructive than the subsequent
>explanations of institutional success.
>
>Sometimes, professions are consigned to the margins over a tussle for
>power and influence. When competing occupational groups vie for access
>to top managerial positions in large-scale organizations, one
>profession may come to dominate at the expense of another. The case of
>accountancys ascendancy over engineering during the twentieth century
>provides a particularly illustrative example in this respect
>(Armstrong, 1985). This tells us that the relation between the
>professions and the margins is, at least in part, determined by
>conflict and competition in organizational settings. But the margins
>present an opportunity to the professions as well as a threat. It is
>on the fringes that new services and innovative techniques are
>identified, claimed, and appropriated for collective gain by
>professional groups. For example, business advisory services now form
>the core business for the largest accounting firms, alongside more
>traditional auditing activities (Greenwood, Suddaby, and Hinings, 2002).
>
>Professions are also faced with issues of marginalization from within.
>Traditionally dominated by middle-class white men, many professions
>have long been accused of excluding those who come from a different
>class, gender, or race. Professional groups such as pilots (Ashcraft,
>2005), police officers (Boogaard and Roggeband, 2010), medical doctors
>(Allen, 2005), and management consultants (Meriläinen et al., 2004)
>have all received critical attention in this regard. However, some
>typically male-dominated professions like IT and engineering are
>beginning to rebrand their image to attract more women and people from
>a variety of social and ethnic backgrounds (Powell, Bagilhole, and
>Dainty, 2009). As a result, previously marginalized employees in these
>occupations are now highlighted as examples of diversity in the
>professions.
>
>The margins are contested: they mark the points at which jurisdictions
>of professional practice are fought over, lost and won. The margins
>are unstable: what counts as peripheral to a profession is constantly
>being modified by institutional reform, political restructuring and
>wider economic trends. The margins are liminal: they are the places
>where professionals encounter and negotiate with other professionals,
>non-professionals, clients and the state. Finally, the margins are
>perilous: they indicate the threshold of ethical conduct across which
>trained practitioners have, time and again, had occasion to pass.
>
>We welcome all submissions that deal with the question of professions
>at the margins. Possible themes include, but are not limited to, the
>following:
>
>-       Deprofessionalization and the failure of professional projects
>-       Interprofessional competition and jurisdiction disputes
>-       Ethics and professional misconduct
>-       Social class and the professions
>-       Gender and the professions
>-       Race and the professions
>-       Marginal professions
>-       Parasitic professions
>-       Conflict between professional 
>associations and professional service firms
>-       Limits of professional practice
>-       Boundaries between professional groups
>-       Diversity and equality in professions
>-       New frontiers in professionalism
>-       Social marginalization in the professions
>Deadline for submissions: 31st May 2011
>
>All contributions should be submitted to one of the issue editors:
>Nick Butler ((niab2 /at/ st-andrews.ac.uk)), Shiona 
>Chillas ((sac30 /at/ st-andrews.ac.uk) ), or Sara 
>Louise Muhr ((saralouisemuhr /at/ gmail.com)). Please note that
>three categories of contributions are invited for the special issue:
>articles, notes, and reviews. Information about these different types
>of contributions can be found at: 
>www.ephemeraweb.org/journal/ call.htm. 
>Contributions will undergo a double blind review process.
>All submissions should follow ephemeras submissions guidelines,
>available at: www.ephemeraweb.org/journal/submit.htm. For further
>information, please contact one of the special issue editors.
>
>
>Allen, I. (2005) Women doctors and their careers: what now?, British
>Medical Journal, 331(7516): 569-573.
>
>Armstrong, P. (1985) Changing management control strategies: The role
>of competition between accountancy and other organisational
>professions, Accounting, Organizations and Society, 10(2): 129-148.
>
>Ashcraft, K.L. (2005) Resistance through consent? Occupational
>identity, organizational form, and the maintenance of masculinity
>among commercial airline pilots, Management Comunication Quarterly,
>19(1): 67-90.
>
>Boogaard, B. and C. Roggeband (2010) Paradoxes of intersectionality:
>Theorizing inequality in the Dutch police force through structure and
>agency, Organization, 17(1): 53-75.
>
>Freidson, E. (2007) Professional Dominance: The Social Structure of
>Medical Care. New Brunswick and New Jersey: Transaction.
>
>Greenwood, R., R.  Suddaby, and C.R. Hinings (2002) Theorizing
>change: The role of professional associations in the transformation of
>institutionalized fields, Academy of Management Journal, 45(1): 58-80.
>
>Kipping, M., I. Kirkpatrick, and D. Muzio (2006) Overly controlled or
>out of control? Management consultants and the new corporate
>professionalism, in J. Craig (ed.) Production Values: Futures for
>Professionalism. London: Demos.
>
>McKenna, C. (2008) Give professionalization a chance! Why
>management consulting may yet become a full profession, in D. Muzio,
>S. Ackroyd, and J.F. Chanlat (eds.) Redirections in the Study of
>Expert Labour: Establishing Professions and New Expert Occupations.
>Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
>
>Meriläinen, S., J. Tienari, R. Thomas, and A. Davies (2004)
>Management consultant talk: A cross-cultural comparison of
>normalizing discourse and resistance, Organization, 11(4): 539-564.
>
>Powell, A., B. Bagilhole, and A. Dainty (2009) How women engineers do
>and undo gender: Consequences for gender equality, Gender, Work and
>Organization, 16(4): 411-427.
>
>Scott, R.W. (2008) Lords of the Dance: Professionals as Institutional
>Agents, Organization Studies, 29(2): 219-238.
>
>Watson, T. (2001) Speaking professionally: Occupational anxiety and
>discursive ingenuity among human resourcing specialists, in S.
>Whitehead and M. Dent (eds.) Management Professional Identities:
>Knowledge, Performativity and the New Professional. London and New
>York: Routledge.

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