Serving the Fruit of the Spirit: Emotions, Workplace Games, and Labor Control

• In Event: 341 - Section on Sociology of Religion Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 01. Religious Organizations

Abstract

This paper extends the literature on workplace games through an analysis of games that are routinely practiced by members of a communal new religious movement (NRM) in their dual role as members and employees. Drawing from ethnographic data collected at both the businesses and the homes of a communal NRM, I posit that members enact a game of conversion in the workplace, alleviating the monotony of the required daily tasks, while gaining prestige within the group, and reaffirming their own beliefs in the groups biblical structure. Unlike previous research on workplace games, this paper looks specifically at emotional aspects of work place games—especially as they hold salience to a larger goal of the group overall. Through the application of a framework developed from past labor studies literature on workplace games I demonstrate the ideological influences, and emotional attachments to that ideology, that undergird the sale of a lifestyle and its attached norms, values, and beliefs. Findings suggest that those who are total converts heighten commitment to the game of conversion and are more emotionally attached to the games outcome.

Author

• Amelia Blume, University of Arizona