Handcrafted Careers: How Workers Navigate Racialized Career Pathways in the Craft Beer Industry

Abstract

What do work career dynamics in contemporary labor settings tell us about how racism operates in ways that go beyond the explicitly exclusionary actions of management? Building on theories of racialized organizations, this research offers a ground-level examination of the career pathways of craft beer workers in the United States. Drawing on 107 in-depth interviews and two years of ethnographic fieldwork, I describe how workers engage in employment micro-transitions along two unequal career pathways—the creative pathway and the hard labor pathway—that are both racialized and classed. White men and men of color use their respective access to key resources valued at different stages of the employment process to navigate their careers in this industry. Yet because many of the resources that advantage the former are inconspicuous, White men move into desirable jobs of creative authority in ways that appear natural and well-deserved rather than discriminatory. I elaborate on how the framework of employment micro-transitions and racialized career pathways can offer insight into the micro-level processes of social inequality that accumulate within today’s work settings.