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Networks of aestheticization: the architecture, artefacts and embodiment of hairdressing salons

Jackson Samuel Consulting and Search, London, shalene83{at}hotmail.com

Philip Hancock

University of Warwick, Coventry, phillip.hancock{at}wbs.ac.uk

The aesthetic dimension of interactive service work is increasingly significant. This is reflected in the attention paid to it within both industrial sociology and organization studies. Such research has however tended to focus either on the aesthetic aspects of the labour process of service workers or, alternatively, on the material environments within which such labour takes place. This article draws on data derived from a case study investigation of two hairdressing salons in the UK. It extends our understanding of the aesthetics of such service encounters through an analysis of the inter-relationships between the human and non-human elements present in such workspaces. Incorporating elements of actor-network theory, it examines the aestheticization processes that emerge from, among other things those networks of architecture and design, non-human artefacts, and embodiment and aesthetic labour, that constitute the servicescapes of the salons in question.

Key Words: actor-network theory • aesthetic labour • aesthetics • artefacts • hairdressing • service work

Work, Employment & Society, Vol. 23, No. 3, 460-476 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0950017009337060


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