3 - From Feces to Flowers

Summary

This chapter explores how cleaners experience and approach dirt. Dirt plays a pivotal role in their everyday work life. It matters not just symbolically but also in its very materiality. Working with dirt can feel cyclical, frustrating, painful and futile. It can threaten cleaners’ health, safety and their dignity. At the same time, cleaners also find in their work opportunities for earning an honest living, a sense of satisfaction and the respect of others. They enjoy the feeling of accomplishment when turning dirty spaces into clean ones. Working with dirt can allow for liberties, providing cleaners with a sense of autonomy. As much as dirt can disgust, it also fascinates cleaners. The pursuit of dirt can make their work exciting, fun, and even hot. All this shows how treating dirt as merely a source of shame, a common assumption in academia and public, does not do justice to cleaners’ lived experiences. This assumption risks reinforcing a stigma and deny that cleaners can approach what they do with both interest and motivation. Whereas dirt plays a significant, even starring role in the cleaners’ workplace dramas of dignity, it is but only one of many.