Working Bodies: Interactive Service Employment and Workplace Identities (Studies in Urban and Social Change)

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.

• Defines ‘body work’ to include the work by service sector employees on their own bodies and on the bodies of others
• Sets UK case studies in the context of global patterns of economic change
• Explores the consequences of growing polarization in the service sector
• Draws on geography, sociology, anthropology, labour market studies, and feminist scholarship