“Getting a grip”? Phenomenological insights into handling work place in London’s Soho

How are working lives shaped by the demands and expectations associated with a particular workplace? And how are work identities enacted to demonstrate a capacity to cope with place-based demands, expectations, and associations? Drawing on insights from phenomenological perspectives on space, place, and situated experience, particularly Merleau-Ponty’s concept of ‘grip’, and interview data drawn from longitudinal research with men and women working in London’s Soho, this paper shows how working lives and identities are situated within, and enacted through, practices that involve developing and demonstrating a capacity for place handling. The analysis shows how this is negotiated by those working in iconic locales in which their working lives and identities are shaped by meanings that are both evolving and enduring, and which require them to get and maintain a demonstrable grip on the setting in which they work. In contributing to a growing interest in understanding working lives as situated phenomena, the paper challenges the idea that work is increasingly place-less, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the digitalization of work accelerated by it, emphasizing how where work takes place continues to matter to how it is enacted and experienced.