Worked to the Bone

Worked to the Bone is a provocative examination of race, class and the mechanics of inequality in the United States. In an engaging and accessible style that combines thoroughly documented sociological insight with her own compelling personal narrative, Pem Buck illustrates the ways in which constructions of race and the promise of white privilege have been used at specific historical moments in two Kentucky counties to divide those who might have otherwise acted on common class interests.

Worked to the Bone analyzes Kentucky’s political and social transformation, providing an overview of the key events that shaped the region: from slavery, share-cropping, Jim Crow, the loss of land rights and the subsequent creation of a cheap labor force; the challenges to capitalism during the populist era, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the south; to the “New South” and integration into the global economy. Pem Buck successfully constructs an alternative anthropology, offering a perspective which takes account of what she calls “the view from under the sink”—or from behind the cash register or sewing machine; welfare line or computer keyboard; or any of the countless other places where ordinary people struggle to make ends meet.

Pem Buck examines the long term effects of these developments and discusses their impact on the lives of working people in Kentucky. She also analyzes the role of local tobacco-growing and corporate elites in the underdevelopment of the state, highlighting the ways in which relationships between poor white and poor black working people are continually manipulated to facilitate that process.