Driving Through Neoliberalism : Finnish Truck Drivers Constructing Respectable Male Worker Subjectivities

Abstract

This chapter analyses how Finnish male truck drivers (re)produce themselves as respectable male workers in the face of the recent economic, technological and institutional transformations impacting the European haulage sector. The investigation is based on ethnographic data which are produced by riding along on assignments with ten male Finnish truck drivers in the period 2012–2016. The analysis shows how truck drivers’ independence and value in the work process has become challenged and how truckers experience being occupationally stigmatized. The study argues, however, that while economic restructuring undermines some components of traditional forms of working-class masculinity, masculine codes surrounding manual skills, physical effort and a hard-earned wage, where they are available, still provide a language for making oneself a respectable male worker.