Authors:
- Maia Hoogers, Bachelor of Arts in Sociology, University of Alberta
- Rob Shields, Professor, University of Alberta
The labour of infrastructure creation is highly visible, as large-scale projects disrupt daily life. But labour continues once the dust of development settles, and includes the day-to-day operations that maintain the infrastructure of a city. Municipal public works departments oversee much of this work, yet they intentionally make it invisible within cities, which contributes to a deficit of information about the labour, and a deficit in planning and funding for it.
In Canada, municipal infrastructure comes in many forms. For the purposes of this piece, we focus on outdoor labour in the public sector, including landscaping and grounds maintenance labourers, and public works and maintenance labourers, who maintain municipal landscapes and other infrastructure.i Our perspective comes from both a review of the academic literature and participant observation from first-hand experience as a member of a maintenance crew of this kind in Edmonton, Alberta.
There is often a deficit in planning the day-to-day operations of a city, which can make it difficult for municipal employees to perform their tasks efficiently and effectively. The work these municipal employees do is largely done in the view of the public — but ignored. One example is the Site Servicing department of the City of Edmonton Parks and Roads Services Department, in which workers empty the garbage cans placed in public parks and along public trails. High-vis vests and steel-toe boots identify the labourer as someone who can be ignored or overlooked. The public’s assumption is that this work simply gets done, and thus the labourers become as much dressing for the parks and paths as the trees they trim.
This moves the labourers to the “backstage” of cities, following the concept of “frontstage” vs “backstage” developed by Canadian-American sociologist Erving Goffman in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.ii Public spaces are generally thought of as “frontstages,” where people are aware that they are being perceived and thus follow social and cultural norms and expectations. The “backstage” is an area away from the view of the audience, and even the actors on the frontstage, which “conceals the amount and kind of work that [has] to be done.”iii Hiding the backstage extends to ignoring or overlooking this labour even when it intrudes into view, much like stagehands changing props between scenes.
The maintenance of public facilities may take place right in front of us without being noticed, except when we are inconvenienced. For example, members of the public often berate workers for driving through parks to access the cans, as they are breaking the barrier between backstage and frontstage. But accessing parks and other public facilities requires crossing the threshold between back and front. This relationship is often one of conflict and complaints, and the public is unlikely to support money going to further visible maintenance work as they see it as a hassle and an impediment to their enjoyment of the frontstage. Occasionally a citizen will see workers as a key to gaining insight into city operations, asking whether potholes will be filled, or more parks built. But as the employee has little to no knowledge of the planning behind their work, and even less influence on the outcome, they keep to their backstage role in the shadows of the city.
Infrastructure maintenance work occurring in the backstage of the city maintains the illusion of a show without a hitch. But there are hitches, especially where the backstage is not designed with the “stagehand” in mind. Backstaging and keeping infrastructural labour as unobtrusive as possible results in it being deliberately overlooked. In our experience, this work is underfunded and understaffed, neither seen nor acknowledged by the public, who do not understand the need to invest more time, money, or planning into this backstage.
Perhaps cities have done too good a job of backstaging the labourer, as now municipal labour is overlooked in academic research and planning practices, in addition to in everyday life. Our literature review found a lack of research on formal labour specifically in relation to municipal infrastructure. Where data does exist, it is not easily accessible and it is therefore challenging for independent researchers to evaluate: it may be held by municipal corporate services or by private sector providers of maintenance services, and while seasonal employees make up a significant portion of the municipal workforce, they are harder to capture in the data because of their short time of employment. Comparative studies are thus rare. In addition, there are few projects that conceptualize the status and issues of this labour sector. But the problems are real and contributing to the greater infrastructure deficit.
Having infrastructure going under-maintained, even infrastructure as small as a garbage can, leads to a premature breakdown. And with an inefficient backstage, labourers are less able to service or replace these dying infrastructures. Interventions then become larger in scale, and thus more expensive and more obtrusive to the public. The infrastructure deficit goes beyond water pipes and roadways: it is pervasive in every part of the city.
Doing research on people who are deliberately made invisible through bureaucratic practices and cultural norms is difficult. More research is needed to determine how to best design the backstages of the city, and this requires drawing attention to those workers who perform from the wings. Once planning can involve the labourers as well as the public, infrastructure maintenance will be more efficient – which will help address the failings of day-to-day urban infrastructure.
Footnotes
i These are categorized under the National Occupational Classification (NOC) as 85121 (landscaping and grounds maintenance) and 75212 (public works and maintenance labourers). While they may be employed by the public or private sector, this piece focuses on the public sector. Source: Employment and Social Development Canada, “National Occupational Classification,” accessed February 26, 2025. https://noc.esdc.gc.ca/Structure/Noc2021.
ii Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 1973).
iii Goffman, 71.
