Massimiliano Mollona. Made in Sheffield: An Ethnography of Industrial Work and Politics. New York: Berghahn Books, 2009

Abstract

Massimiliano Mollona is an Italian social anthropologist with an economic background who currently lectures at Goldsmiths, University of London. In Made in Sheffield he focuses on the post-Thatcherist remainders of the once very remarkable Sheffield steel industry, which he describes and analyses through ethnographic methods. While a century ago cutlery from Sheffield was in use across the globe, the city today is dominated by big shopping centers, new leisure developments, and other facilities ofthe service sector, with the industry and its staff being socially and spatially marginalized. Mollona’s monograph is based on the author’s fieldwork as a worker for twosteel companies, Morris Ltd. and Unsor Ltd., whose staff’s working conditions, community life, and self-perceptions form the core of the study. This is skillfully related to broader economic and social trends and combined with class analysis and a critical engagement with current anthropological, sociological, and economic theories.