Cardiff University lecturers, Rebecca Scott and Robin Burrow, will deliver a presentation for their paper “Abused, beaten and branded: Chefs’ experiences of kitchen violence and why they choose to remain”. This next seminar in the Violence Research Group (VRG) series will look at the mechanisms that condition willingness to endure harm in the workplace. It addresses this phenomenon by drawing on empirical data comprised of interviews with 47 elite chefs employed in leading kitchens around the world.
The findings show that chefs experience a multiplicity of different forms of violence, including verbal violence (‘banter’) but also sexual violence and extreme physical violence resulting in actual and grievous bodily harm, and wounding. The analysis of chefs’ experience of violence reveals three mechanisms that help to explain why chefs chose to endure violence and in some cases regard it as a valuable experience: Privilege, plasticity, and strain. These progress our understanding of organisational violence by showing that violence is normalised through processes that help chefs to rationalise and make sense of it. This has the effect of co-opting chefs’ complicity by inhibiting their desire to contest violence directed at them.
Speaker Biographies
Dr Robin Burrow - Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University
Dr Rebecca Scott - Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University
When: Tuesday 28th May 2019, 12:30pm - 13:30pm
Where: Meeting Room 2.13, CSRI, Level 2, Friary House, Greyfriars Road, Cardiff, CF10 3AE
Contact: [email protected]
This event is open to Cardiff University staff and students. Please complete the registration form below to reserve your place.