Young subjectivities and affective labour in the service economy

Farrugia, David; Threadgold, Steven; Coffey, Julia

doi:10.1080/13676261.2017.1366015

Cited by 65 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 23 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Often disaffected at school, they may leave with few qualifications and, in some cases, with a reputation as troublemakers. After leaving full-time education and looking for work, they typically find themselves less eligible for the sorts of customer-facing service employment that dominates these towns as it demands female-coded characteristics such as empathy or persuasion (Farrugia et al, 2018;McDowell, 2012;Nixon, 2009Nixon, , 2018. The specific version of a working-class 'protest masculinity' identified by Connell (2000), based on an aggressive, swaggering, street-wise masculinity further restricts their employment prospects.…”

Section: Growing Up On the Coast: White Male And Marginalmentioning

confidence: 99%

The other side of coastal towns: Young men’s precarious lives on the margins of England

McDowell

Bonner-Thompson

2019

Environ Plan A

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

English coastal resorts are among the most deprived towns in the country, with levels of economic and social deprivation often exceeding those of the inner areas of large cities and former industrial settlements. Their dominant image in the media and other forms of representation, however, is of places of innocent fun and leisure, often associated with their history as holiday destinations for working-class families, although the darker side of these towns is not completely ignored. The lives of white working-class, year-round residents in these towns, however, seldom feature in representations or in policy and academic research. Here, we focus on the everyday lives of one group: young white working-class men whose employment opportunities have been adversely affected by economic decline, austerity and rising inequality. In places where employment is largely restricted to customer-facing jobs in the holiday trade, the dominant construction of youthful masculinity and the associated rhetorical view of these men as troublesome not only excludes them from the labour market but exacerbates their marginality. Through interviews in four English resorts, we explore the causes and consequences of their precarity.

show abstract

Section: Growing Up On the Coast: White Male And Marginalmentioning

confidence: 99%

The other side of coastal towns: Young men’s precarious lives on the margins of England

McDowell

Bonner-Thompson

2019

Environ Plan A

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Certain ethnographic literature on fun at work does allow for a slightly more ‘balanced’ conception of power; attributing some form of power-sharing to management and employees. Some authors acknowledge, for instance, the often ambivalent response of employees to fun initiatives (Baldry & Hallier, 2010; Farrugia, Threadgold, & Coffey, 2017; Fleming, 2005; Fleming & Sturdy, 2011; Redman & Mathews, 2002). On the one hand, workers may appreciate management-led initiatives and associated positive outcomes.…”

Section: Background and Research Focusmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘I always have fun at work’: How ‘remarkable workers’ employ agency and control in order to enjoy themselves

Owler¹,

Morrison

2019

Journal of Management & Organization

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Organisations and associated management practices are generally considered responsible for promoting employees' enjoyment of work. Our study, on the other hand, seeks to examine the capacity of individual workers to regulate their own experience of fun. We interviewed eight ‘remarkable’ workers who claimed to always (or nearly always) have fun at work. We utilised a critical realist approach in the analysis that enabled the consideration of both structure and agency in the experience of workplace fun. A key research finding was that participants possessed a strong sense of control over their own happiness at work, demonstrated in four ways: (1) a priority placed on fun, (2) a sense of responsibility for fun, (3) a positive orientation to the world and (4) a sense of mastery and challenge in work tasks. Research findings may inspire both individual workers and organisations to adopt an agentic outlook in the workplace, implementing strategies that enhance employee control.

show abstract

“…Extending Hochschild's work many have already identified how affect is central in the aestheticized performances required for interactive sales work (e.g. Entwistle & Wissinger ; Tyler ; Farrugia et al ). As is the focus of this paper, for those engaged in enterprising sales‐based work on the margins of employment affective labour is intensified due to the relational and moralized economy within which it operates.…”

Section: Affective Entrepreneurialismmentioning

confidence: 93%

The economy of smiles: affect, labour and the contemporary deserving poor

Gerrard

2018

British Journal of Sociology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper examines the affective dimensions of new forms of informal entrepreneurial work carried out in spaces of unemployment. Situating the analysis within contemporary scholarship on deservingness and on affect and labour, I shed light on the forms of entrepreneurial labour that rely upon affect-driven economies of exchange underpinned by moral judgements of deservingness, value and worth. In particular, this paper draws on a multi-city (Melbourne, London, San Francisco) study of homeless street press sellers (The Big Issue and Street Sheet) to explore the ways in which contemporary practices of charity and care are carried out through individualized market-place exchanges. Sellers' accounts of their work reveal how smiling and being (or looking) happy is a performative expectation that must be managed in the face of poverty and precarity.

show abstract

Young subjectivities and affective labour in the service economy

Cited by 65 publications

References 23 publications

The other side of coastal towns: Young men’s precarious lives on the margins of England

The other side of coastal towns: Young men’s precarious lives on the margins of England

‘I always have fun at work’: How ‘remarkable workers’ employ agency and control in order to enjoy themselves

The economy of smiles: affect, labour and the contemporary deserving poor

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About