Hospitality work as social reproduction: embodied and emotional labour during COVID-19

JONES, Charlotte, WHITE, Lauren, SLATER, Jen and PLUQUAILEC, Jill (2023). Hospitality work as social reproduction: embodied and emotional labour during COVID-19. Sociology.

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Abstract

This article focuses on how the imaginary of a ‘safe’ environment was visualised and conveyed within the hospitality sector during the COVID-19 pandemic, drawing on diaries and interviews with 21 workers in the UK. Our findings show increased workloads for hospitality staff, compounded by anxieties of risk and individualised COVID-19 regulation work. This includes workers’ negotiations of corporeal boundaries and distancing from customers, the visible cleaning of communal areas and recuperation and care work for their own bodies and others in shared living spaces. We draw on conceptualisations of embodied and emotional labour to understand these experiences, reflecting on the importance of the actions performed by workers in maintaining community spaces and creating customer confidence in safely enjoying a ‘hospitable’ environment. This article contributes to social science scholarship of embodied and emotional labour, hospitality and social reproduction.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	1608 Sociology; Sociology; 4410 Sociology
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1177/00380385231189190
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Elements
Depositing User:	Symplectic Elements
Date Deposited:	25 Sep 2023 11:46
Last Modified:	11 Oct 2023 11:31
URI:	https://shura.shu.ac.uk/id/eprint/32427

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