Home Improvement in Aotearoa New Zealand and the UK by Rosie Cox
Author:Rosie Cox [Cox, Rosie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Anthropology, General, Gender Studies
ISBN: 9781000181807
Google: qnsqEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2021-05-30T03:56:58+00:00
Becoming a handyman
Interviewees in Aotearoa New Zealand and the UK became handymen through a mix of accident, serendipity and active choice. For a some it followed formal training in a related area, but most handymen learned their skills informally on the job or by working with friends and family, as discussed in Chapter 4. For all of them, the move into handyman work was possible because they were imagined by others and imagined themselves to be capable of doing this work. In this section I look at the routes that people have taken to become handymen, through migration, work in the construction sector and gaining skills through DIY.
In the UK context in particular, there was not a clear divide between handyman work and employment on large construction projects or multi-person residential renovations. Handymen might mix these types of work during the same week or move between them over longer periods of time. Some handymen also moved between self-employment and doing the same tasks under the auspices of residential management companies or residential developers. There appeared to be a very fluid boundary between construction and renovations work, as well as formal and informal employment. Builders learnt their skills informally, on-the-job, and relied on networks to make this possible (Thiel 2007). Handyman UKHan3, who also worked as an employee in a maintenance company, described his experience of combining these different types of construction work:
Iâve worked on big building sites, but not a lot of work on big building sites, mainly small ⦠loft extensions and things, and renovation of houses and lots of things like that really. ⦠I have worked for companies that have done a bit of commercial work, but building site work, in the winter itâs not nice, itâs very cold! I prefer working for the smaller companies that do the household work.
For the migrant handymen in the UK, stories of migration and of movement into construction/handyman work were intertwined; for many moving to Britain made them construction workers, and after that they became handymen. In the first decade of the twenty-first century there was a rapid influx of Eastern European migrants into the sector with one survey showing 37 per cent of workers in greater London construction in 2009 were migrants (Tutt et al. 2013). The migrant handymen who were interviewed found jobs in this sector easily through their personal and informal contacts. For example, migrant handyman UKMH2, who had been doing a white-collar job in Poland, explained:
I came through friends ⦠They lived here already for some period of time, I worked and studied in Poland. When thoughts about maybe changing something started emerging in my mind, then they proposed, âcome, maybe youâd like to come to Englandâ; and from the proposition to the act you could say elapsed a few hours. I came to England, to London, three days later I started working in the building field as a decorator ⦠One of the friends who brought me here worked for the company and he basically recommended me and I started working.
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