Small firms are saturated with the ideology of the family. For some, the notion of the `family firm' conjures up an image of harmony at the workplace; moreover, it is seen to serve as an important source of flexibility. Others, however, view it as little more than a cover-up of exploitative practices which are believed to be dominant in small firms. Using an ethnographic approach, this article explores in detail how the notion of the family is actually operationalised at the level of the workplace. Participant and direct observation methods were used to examine the role of the family in management organisation, recruitment and workplace control. We argue that the family is crucial to the understanding of the pattern of social relations within small firms, but it is more complex and contested than commonly portrayed. The `family' was found to be both a resource and constraint; management benefited from the `flexibility' afforded by familial ties, but the family also imposed obligations which contradicted economic rationality. The diffuse nature of such arrangements meant that `negotiated paternalism', rather than autocracy or harmony, more accurately depicted the family at work.

This article explores the unusually high levels of cosmetic surgery in South Korea -for both women and men. We argue that existing explanations, which draw on feminist and postcolonial positions, presenting cosmetic surgery as pertinent only to female and non-western bodies found lacking by patriarchal and racist/imperialist economies, miss important cultural influences. In particular, focus on western cultural hegemony misses the influence in Korea of national identity discourses and traditional Korean beliefs and practices such as physiognomy. We show how these beliefs provide a more 'gendered' as opposed to feminist analysis, which allows space for discussion of men's surgeries. Finally, we critique the accepted notion of the 'western body', especially its position in some literature as a more unobtainable ideal for non-western than for western women. We argue that this body has little in common with actual western women's bodies, and more in common with a globalized image, embodying idealized elements from many different cultures.South Koreans' alleged 'obsession' with cosmetic surgery regularly hits headlines both in Asia and the 'West' because of its reportedly high take-up rate by both women and men. While statistics on the numbers of people who undergo aesthetic surgery in Korea are not entirely reliable -since most surgeries take place at private clinics and the industry in Korea (as elsewhere) is poorly regulated -the

This paper explores the reasons why video, and other visual representations have been largely ignored in sociology, whilst the possibilities of video as an empirical source have been sidelined by cultural studies. Discussions of methodology have raised doubts about notions such as objectivity and scientific knowledge, and about the power relationships involved in the research and writing processes, and techniques that one might employ in order to avoid such problems have been suggested. Yet the aims of such techniques are misguided if they serve only to further legitimate the`truth' of the research itself. In this context I explore some of the possibilities of visual methods, such as video and photography, whilst also examining some of the ethical issues raised by them. In this respect, the paper explores the notion of a`queer methodology'. This approach is indebted to the legacy of its predecessor, feminist methodology, but departs from this in several important ways. I will explore these differences and examine the possibility that a place for the visual within sociology is an inherently queer conception.

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This article identifies a prevalent strand of feminist writing on beauty and aesthetic surgery and explores some of the contradictions and inconsistencies inscribed within it. In particular, we concentrate on three central feminist claims: that living in a misogynist culture produces aesthetic surgery as an issue predominantly concerning women; that pain -both physical and psychic -is a central conceptual frame through which aesthetic surgery should be viewed; and that aesthetic surgery is inherently a normalizing technology. Engaging with these 'myths', we explore the tensions uncovered through a historical analysis of the practices of aesthetic surgery as well as the challenges to feminist claims offered by post-feminism. In particular we seek to destabilize the connection in feminist writing between beauty and passivity. We argue that through aesthetic references to denigrated black and working-class bodies, young women may mobilize aesthetic surgeries to reinscribe active sexuality on the feminine body.keywords aesthetic surgery, beauty, body, class, race In this article we aim to disrupt some of the usual ways in which feminists have come to think about the female (and male) body, in order to find a space between the prevalent discourses for some alternative explanations. Our principal aim is to explore some of the diverse reasons why women (and men) may engage in aesthetic surgery, 1 without relying on the beauty myth as a determining argument. Instead we focus on seekers of aesthetic surgery as either consumers (exercising choice within a given set of constraints) or as reflexively engaged in a project of the self (within a limited range of possible selves). We aim to widen understandings of aesthetic bodily practices to extend beyond gender and/or 'race' in any conventional sense. Furthermore, we aim to decouple the link between beauty and passivity, or at least to decentre it, by positing alternative correlations such as the link between glamour and active sexuality. In doing this we will also uncover some of the ways in which feminist discourses of beauty are inherently classed and 'raced'. However, moving away from a singular explanation -beauty, normalization, internalized racism, for instance -inevitably complicates our argument. In the following sections