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Looking for the Good Soldier, Svejk

Alternative Modalities of Resistance in the Contemporary Workplace

Peter Fleming

University of Melbourne, Australia, p.fleming1{at}pgrad.unimelb.edu.au

Graham Sewell

University of Melbourne, Australia, gsewell{at}unimelb.edu.au

This article continues the current trend in Sociology of exploring and re-evaluating concepts of workplace resistance. We agree with Thompson and Ackroyd (1995) that much of the critical literature investigating managerial controls like self-regulating teams and corporate culture management have placed far too much emphasis on ideological incorporation and ‘colonization’ of subjectivity and not enough on employee recalcitrance and resistance. Rather than hastily blaming the ‘Foucauldian turn’ for this oversight, however, we argue instead that resistance is indeed difficult to see if thought of in purely traditional terms (e.g. strikes, sabotage, picketing). In the age of team normalization and ‘cultural cleansing’ we must look in less obvious places to see practices of dissent. Our article introduces the concept of ‘svejkism’, after the character in Jaroslav Hasek’s novel, The Good Soldier, Svejk. Svejkism is presented as an example of a modality of employee opposition that may have been missed in earlier evaluations of new work forms. We discuss the practice of svejkism and the implications it has for contemporary workplace politics.

Key Words: cultural control • employment • humour • irony • labour • resistance

Sociology, Vol. 36, No. 4, 857-873 (2002)
DOI: 10.1177/003803850203600404
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