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Benjamin Snyder, a graduate sociology student in the University of Virginia"s Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, presented his paper, "The Professionalized Body: Truck Driving in the Age of Flexibilization," at the 108th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. Snyder conducted his research in the cab of a truck hauling frozen chicken from Missouri to Virginia.
The research explores how truck drivers, as representatives of the American work force, are reacting to marketplace demands for speed and flexibility. It relies on research for Snyder"s dissertation, which examines how post-industrial capitalism is changing the environments in which people work and how this affects workers" minds, bodies and emotions.
Snyder spent 3 years interviewing long-haul truck drivers and riding in trucks and said while much of his research revealed deeply concerning problems with the way workplaces are changing, it was uplifting to see people being creative to make a meaningful life for themselves.
"Capitalist organizations that are trying to make a profit have to be more efficient and more flexible in moving freight," he said. "They need speed and flexibility in their operations to move freight when the markets demand it. Goods have to...