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Working in the Biz: Material and Identity Processes of Bartending

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Date Issued:
2017
Summary:
Bartending makes for an interesting case study in that it brings together research on emotional labor and tipped front-line service jobs, as well as the contemporary increase in precarity in work and precarity in life. This project explores the material and identity processes of bartending, examining how a precarious job with high expectations of emotional labor in-turn affects the occupational and personal identities of those employed in the industry. Overall three overarching themes were identified: (1) When wages are outsourced to customers via tipping systems workers are exposed to particularly high emotional demands, rendering bartending a unique form of quid pro quo emotional labor. (2) Bartenders exist in a “default career” mode of employment that is stigmatized for being low-status low-skilled labor. (3) Performing emotional labor and managing stigma creates a divergence between bartender’s personal and occupational identities resulting in constant identity work on and off the job.
Title: Working in the Biz: Material and Identity Processes of Bartending.
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Name(s): Frazer, Jacqueline M.E., author
Hough, Phillip A., Thesis advisor
Florida Atlantic University, Degree grantor
Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Department of Sociology
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation
Date Created: 2017
Date Issued: 2017
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Place of Publication: Boca Raton, Fla.
Physical Form: application/pdf
Extent: 78 p.
Language(s): English
Summary: Bartending makes for an interesting case study in that it brings together research on emotional labor and tipped front-line service jobs, as well as the contemporary increase in precarity in work and precarity in life. This project explores the material and identity processes of bartending, examining how a precarious job with high expectations of emotional labor in-turn affects the occupational and personal identities of those employed in the industry. Overall three overarching themes were identified: (1) When wages are outsourced to customers via tipping systems workers are exposed to particularly high emotional demands, rendering bartending a unique form of quid pro quo emotional labor. (2) Bartenders exist in a “default career” mode of employment that is stigmatized for being low-status low-skilled labor. (3) Performing emotional labor and managing stigma creates a divergence between bartender’s personal and occupational identities resulting in constant identity work on and off the job.
Identifier: FA00004876 (IID)
Degree granted: Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017.
Collection: FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
Note(s): Includes bibliography.
Subject(s): Bartending--Psychological aspects.
Bars (Drinking establishments)--Management.
Alcoholic beverage industry--Social aspects.
Identity (Psychology)
Quality of work life.
Work environment--Social aspects.
Held by: Florida Atlantic University Libraries
Sublocation: Digital Library
Links: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004876
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004876
Use and Reproduction: Copyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder.
Use and Reproduction: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Host Institution: FAU
Is Part of Series: Florida Atlantic University Digital Library Collections.