On February 14, 2024, the Shift Project community came together for the first monthly meeting of the spring semester to hear Rebecca Wolfe and Dylan Nguyen present their research on the role of service workers in the privatization and democratization of public-private establishments.
Guest Speakers
- Rebecca Wolfe is a sociology PhD candidate at the University of California, San Francisco. She has been working with the Shift Project since 2019 and is currently heading up the project’s qualitative efforts.
- Dylan Nguyen is a predoctoral researcher with the Shift Project. They received their BA in Sociology, Statistics, and Social Policy Analysis from Rice University in 2022.
Presentation: “Regulating Precarious Spaces: The Role of Service Workers in Privatizing and Democratizing Public-Private Establishments.” This work-in-progress examines the role of service workers in regulating privately-owned, publicly-open establishments, such as retail and fast food stores. We outline two key worker actions—privatizing and democratizing– that are necessarily shaped and constrained by the push-pull of often-competing demands from customers (often community members) and corporate/management. Privatizing typically privileges corporate interests of profit, while democratizing prioritizes community accessibility in ways that do and do not align with corporate interests.
