Surveilled or Unseen: An Examination of Invisibility and Hypervisibility in the Workplace

Abstract

In the U.S., it is likely that at some point we will all be employed and work. Work can provide many benefits for individuals, from positive well-being to a means to support oneself. Specifically, meaningful work (MW) can provide ways for one to be more engaged with work and have better team cohesion and better psychological well-being. However, not all jobs are created equally, and some jobs have lower status, and as such workers have less relative power in those spaces. Employees in these lines of work are also more likely to struggle with being visible, that is, being seen fully and accurately by the people they work with. Lack of visibility can relate to more experiences of mistreatment and harassment. Two settings that have allowed me to examine these relationships are those of university staff and farmworkers. While these populations differ in terms of the work context and their relative power, they share similarities in that the work that they do offers minimal autonomy and requires repetitive physical movements. These workplaces seemed to be good contexts to examine how visibility experiences link with experiences of work as meaningful, well-being, and mistreatment. In Study 1, I examined university staff members’ (N = 1409) visibility experiences, mental health, meaning they make from their work, and mistreatment (sexual and ethnic harassment). Those university staff who reported more visibility experiences (i.e., invisibility and hypervisibility) also reported worse mental health. Those who reported that their work was more meaningful reported less invisibility and hypervisibility. Regarding sexual and ethnic harassment, university staff who reported more invisibility and hypervisibility also reported worse mental health and reported their work as less meaningful. Interestingly, I found that visibility experiences of men and women, and people of color and white people were not significantly different. In Study 2, I examineed the same variables, but among Latinx farmworkers (N = 104) in California. In this sample, those farmworkers who reported more invisibility and hypervisibility also reported having worse mental health and making less meaning from their work. Regarding sexual and ethnic harassment, those farmworkers who reported more harassment also reported more invisibility, worse mental health, and making less meaning from their work. Interestingly, I found that among Latinx people and Indigenous Latinx people, those who were not Indigenous reported significantly more hypervisibility than Indigenous Latinx people. To close, I discuss implications for visibility research in non-traditional and low-status workplaces.