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Reveals the often-untold stories of front-line public servants.
Community health workers, elections officers, emergency managers, air traffic controllers, government meteorologists, US federal service photographers, and arts and cultural workers perform critical roles, though rarely receive public attention. Their stories told here help reveal this hidden world to provide a rare view of government service.
"Grounded in the experiences and knowledge of public servants, Portraits of Public Service provides concrete examples of why people choose public service and exactly what the job of public servants entails. This is key for not only our primary student body, but it also serves as an important example of a methodology that needs to be adopted more broadly in the field: storytelling and narrative inquiry."— Norma M. Riccucci, author of Critical Race Theory: Exploring its Application to Public Administration
"This is an excellent book for introduction to public administration at the graduate level and would also be appropriate for an undergraduate course directed at college seniors. Public administration is a vast field; this book reveals how big that tent really is. By reframing all of these occupations as public servants, the essays within this volume offer a way to connect the many disparate jobs performed by public administrators in a very thoughtful and powerful way."— Domonic A. Bearfield, coauthor of The Myth of Bureaucratic Neutrality: An Examination of Merit and Representation
List of Illustrations
Introduction: Stories as Knowledge Creation
Staci M. Zavattaro, Jessica E. Sowa, Alexander C. Henderson, and Lauren Hamilton Edwards
SECTION 1: BALANCING ACTS
1. Navigating Between the State and the Community: Stories from Community Health Workers
Gabriela Lotta and Juliana Rocha Miranda
2. Under the Radar: Stories from Government Meteorologists
Kelly A. Stevens
3. Revisiting Librarians as Public Servants
Alicia Schatteman
4. Teachers and Their Monitors: Negotiating Disciplinary Regimes in Pakistan
Moiz Abdul Majid and Sameen A. Mohsin Ali
SECTION 2: LIFE AND DEATH PRESSURE
5. (In)visible and (Mis)understood: The Public Service Work of American Sign Language (ASL) Interpreters during Emergencies
Stephanie Dolamore and Geoffrey Whitebread
6. Unseen but Irreplaceable: The Role of Air Traffic Controllers
Sean A. McCandless
7. Serving in Silence: The Emergency Manager
Kyle R. Overly
SECTION 3: POSSIBLY MISUNDERSTOOD ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
8. When Silence Is Golden: Stories from an Elections Office
Amanda D. Clark
9. Public Defenders as Constitutional Pariahs, Surrogate Deviants, and Emotional Laborers
Adam Croft
10. New York City Property Tax Assessment: Public Employees Serving in Silence
Michael J. Fouassier
11. Affordable Housing and Homelessness Policy Professionals
Maren B. Trochmann
SECTION 4: UNEXPECTED REALMS OF DEMOCRACY
12. Making in the Invisible Visible: The Photographers and Videographers in Public Service
Maja Husar Holmes
13. Arts and Cultural Management During the Pandemic: Introducing the Observant Servant
Sarah Berry, Dutch Reutter, Judith L. Millesen, and Maren B. Trochmann
14. Inconspicuously Indispensable for India: The Untold Stories of Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs)
Nandhini Rangarajan, Aroon P. Manoharan, and Bianca Ortiz-Wythe
15. Multiple Mandates, Competing Goals, and the Challenges of Working in Combined Environmental Agencies in the United States
JoyAnna S. Hopper
Conclusion: A Path Forward for the Field
Staci M. Zavattaro, Jessica E. Sowa, Alexander C. Henderson, and Lauren Hamilton Edwards
List of Contributors
Index