Behind the chair: The experience and meaning of work in the lives of hairdressers.

Abstract

This workplace ethnography examines the organization, meaning, and experience of work among hairdressers employed in a low-cost chain hair salon that, for the purposes of the study, is called The Hair Company (THC). Hairdressing is a unique occupation because the workforce is comprised of skilled manual workers who are overwhelmingly women and as such are denied the occupational status and rewards earned by their male counterparts. Using participant observation and in-depth interview data, the dissertation explores power, agency, and subjectivity in the workplace. The analysis focuses on the ways in which working-class women actively maintain their dignity and resist managerial domination. Results show that hairdressers legitimate their occupational choices with a class- and gender-based logic; participate in identity management strategies; cultivate self-enhancing relationships with customers; create a work culture defined by cooperation and mutualism; and forge bonds of solidarity with coworkers. While documenting myriad nonmaterial rewards that accrue to women in low-status, low-paying work, the study also reveals the numerous material and nonmaterial constraints they face in increasing the economic rewards associated with hairdressing. The dissertation contributes to debates about deskilling, job control, and worker resistance, advances our understanding of subjective dimensions of service work, and adds to scholarly literature on the interpenetration of gender and class identities.