IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/gender/v28y2021i1p39-53.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Symbolic violence in embodying customer service work across the urban/rural divide

Author

Listed:
  • Vijayta Doshi

Abstract

Drawing on a Bourdieuian theoretical framework, this article examines how the urban/rural divide informs the embodiment of customer service work at retail counters in shopping malls in India. Based on an analysis of extensive interviews as well as on‐site observations during 4 years of fieldwork, I document the cross‐class interactions between urban middle‐class customers and rural migrant lower‐class retail workers. I found that rural migrant workers engage in bodywork to embody service work in line with urban cultural “protocols” for customer interactions. Despite their efforts to acquire this valued embodied cultural capital, urban middle‐class customers continuously othered rural migrant workers. The study extends the service work literature on embodiment by pointing to the urban/rural divide in contexts of sustained rural/urban migration, such as India, and more broadly, the Global South. Second, it shows the symbolic violence in customer–worker dynamics reproducing class domination along the urban/rural divide.

Suggested Citation

  • Vijayta Doshi, 2021. "Symbolic violence in embodying customer service work across the urban/rural divide," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 39-53, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:28:y:2021:i:1:p:39-53
    DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12571
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12571
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/gwao.12571?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tim Butler, 2002. "Thinking Global but Acting Local: The Middle Classes in the City," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 7(3), pages 50-68, August.
    2. Gabriella Alberti & Francesco E. Iannuzzi, 2020. "Embodied intersectionality and the intersectional management of hotel labour: The everyday experiences of social differentiation in customer‐oriented work," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(6), pages 1165-1180, November.
    3. Rachel Lara Cohen & Carol Wolkowitz, 2018. "The Feminization of Body Work," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 42-62, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Paulina Segarra & Vijayta Doshi & Martyna Śliwa & Marco Distinto & Arturo Osorio, 2024. "The Business of (Im)migration: Bodies Across Borders," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 194(4), pages 747-752, November.
    2. Laura J. Reeves & Alexandra Bristow, 2024. "Political Organisational Silence and the Ethics of Care: EU Migrant Restaurant Workers in Brexit Britain," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 194(4), pages 825-844, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Denise L. Spitzer, 2022. "Working intimacies: Migrant beer sellers, surveillance, and intimate labor in Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 906-921, May.
    2. Laurence Romani & Patrizia Zanoni & Lotte Holck, 2021. "Radicalizing diversity (research): Time to resume talking about class," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 8-23, January.
    3. George Mavrommatis, 2011. "Stories from Brixton: Gentrification and Different Differences," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 16(2), pages 29-38, June.
    4. Kim Allen & Sumi Hollingworth, 2013. "‘Sticky Subjects’ or ‘Cosmopolitan Creatives’? Social Class, Place and Urban Young People’s Aspirations for Work in the Knowledge Economy," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(3), pages 499-517, February.
    5. Mohammed Cheded & Alexandros Skandalis, 2021. "Touch and contact during COVID‐19: Insights from queer digital spaces," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(S2), pages 340-347, July.
    6. Owain Smolović Jones & Sanela Smolović Jones & Scott Taylor & Emily Yarrow, 2022. "Theorizing gender desegregation as political work: The case of the Welsh Labour Party," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(6), pages 1747-1763, November.
    7. Bianca Stumbitz & Ameeta Jaga, 2020. "A Southern encounter: Maternal body work and low‐income mothers in South Africa," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(6), pages 1485-1500, November.
    8. Tim Butler, 2007. "For Gentrification?," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 39(1), pages 162-181, January.
    9. Francesco E Iannuzzi & Devi Sacchetto, 2022. "Outsourcing and workers’ resistance practices in Venice’s hotel industry: The role of migrants employed by cooperatives," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 43(2), pages 877-897, May.
    10. Talja Blokland & Robert Vief & Daniela Krüger & Henrik Schultze, 2023. "Roots and routes in neighbourhoods. Length of residence, belonging and public familiarity in Berlin, Germany," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(10), pages 1949-1967, August.
    11. Alan Valenzuela-Bustos & Ana Gálvez-Mozo & Verna Alcalde-Gonzalez, 2023. "Invisible Room Attendants: Outsourcing as a Dispositive of (In)visibility and the Resistance of Las Kellys in Spain," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 37(6), pages 1646-1663, December.
    12. Gareth Millington, 2012. "‘Man Dem Link Up’: London's Anti-Riots and Urban Modernism," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 17(4), pages 33-44, November.
    13. Michaela Benson, 2014. "Trajectories of middle-class belonging: The dynamics of place attachment and classed identities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(14), pages 3097-3112, November.
    14. Anna Galazka & Joe O’Mahoney, 2023. "The Socio-Materiality of Dirty Work: A Critical Realist Perspective," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 37(2), pages 432-448, April.
    15. Julia Coffey & Julia Cook & David Farrugia & Steven Threadgold & Penny Jane Burke, 2021. "Intersecting marginalities: International students' struggles for “survival” in COVID‐19," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(4), pages 1337-1351, July.
    16. Rachel Lara Cohen, 2020. "‘We’re not like that’: Crusader and Maverick Occupational Identity Resistance," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 25(1), pages 136-153, March.
    17. Emma Jackson & Tim Butler, 2015. "Revisiting ‘social tectonics’: The middle classes and social mix in gentrifying neighbourhoods," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(13), pages 2349-2365, October.
    18. Corinne Squire & Cigdem Esin & Chila Burman, 2013. "‘You Are Here’: Visual Autobiographies, Cultural-Spatial Positioning, and Resources for Urban Living," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 18(3), pages 1-18, August.
    19. Agustín Cócola Gant, 2016. "Holiday Rentals: The New Gentrification Battlefront," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 21(3), pages 112-120, August.
    20. Richard Webber, 2007. "The Metropolitan Habitus: Its Manifestations, Locations, and Consumption Profiles," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 39(1), pages 182-207, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:28:y:2021:i:1:p:39-53. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0968-6673 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.