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Balance is Everything: Bicycle Messengers, Work and Leisure

University of Brighton, b.m.fincham{at}brighton.ac.uk

The conceptual separation of `work' and `life', as distinct elements of social activity, has become established as shorthand for the social and psychological dislocation felt by being at work and not being at work.There is a literature on the work/life balance driven by governmental rhetoric, based on the idea of flexible working. This article suggests that distinctions between `work' and `life', implying a dichotomy in adult life, are overstated. Using material from a study of bicycle messengers this article presents a rich account of a group of workers for whom the binary distinction between work and life is meaningless. The account of this world of work is more closely aligned with those of the jazz musicians described by Becker or the boxers of Weinberg and Arond, where the occupation, identity and culture are not confined to hours of work.

Key Words: bicycle messengers • employment • ethnography • subculture • work/life balance

Sociology, Vol. 42, No. 4, 618-634 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0038038508091619


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