Working Bodies: Interactive Service Employment and Workplace Identities

Through a series of case studies of low-status interactive and embodied servicing work, Working Bodies examines the theoretical and empirical nature of the shift to embodied work in service-dominated economies. It defines ‘body work’ to include the work by service sector employees on their own bodies and on the bodies of others. It sets UK case studies in the context of global patterns of economic change. It explores the consequences of growing polarization in the service sector, and draws on geography, sociology, anthropology, labour market studies, and feminist scholarship.