Doing differences to become an “Asian businesswoman”: an intersectional approach to emotional and aesthetic labor in multinational companies in France

Background: There has been a lot of research interest in ‘aesthetic labor’, especially since 2012. Research has established a strong relationship between aesthetic labor and emotional labor, especially in the service industry. Various constructs have been studied in the context of aesthetic labor, e.g., gender (studies have examined the ways in which gender affects the performance of aesthetic labor and the consequences of gendered expectations for individuals in different professions), body image (aesthetic labor can have significant effects on an individual's body image, as they may feel pressure to conform to certain beauty standards in order to succeed in their profession), self-presentation (studies have examined the relationship between aesthetic labor and self-presentation, including the ways in which individuals may use aesthetic labor to manage their identities), and customer satisfaction (studies have examined the impact of aesthetic labor on customer perceptions of service quality, as well as the ways in which aesthetic labor can be used to improve customer experiences). However, there is a dearth of studies that comprehensively analyze all available literature on aesthetic labor. Therefore, this study aims to bridge this gap. Aims: This study aims to explore the research that appears in the Scopus database and provide a comprehensive review of the literature published on aesthetic labor to find the past and current trends and explore the future scope of research. Objectives: The objectives of this study are to find the most influential articles on ‘aesthetic labor’, explore the spread of research over the years, find the leading sources and countries as far as publications on aesthetic labor are concerned, and investigate the emerging themes in the area of ‘aesthetic labor.’ Methods: The study used VOS viewer to analyze the articles that emerged in the Scopus database by applying the keyword, ‘aesthetic labor’. The search results were restricted to publications in the domains of social sciences, business management and accounting, and psychology, which resulted in 180 articles. Bibliometric analysis (co-occurrence of keywords) was carried out on these 180 publications. Key Results: Work, employment, and society is the leading source for publications. Maximum research in said area has emerged from the United Kingdom, followed by the United States. The themes are the relationship between aesthetic labor and consumption, emotional labor, and gender inequality, emphasizing the need for fair appearance standards and support for employees due to the stress and burnout associated with presenting oneself in a certain way to create a positive customer experience. Intersectionality of discrimination in aesthetic labor, including appearance-based recruitment, emotional exhaustion, and commodification of workers in service industries, negatively impacts their well-being and job satisfaction. The last theme is an adaptation of industry to appeal to male customers and its implications for the gendered nature of aesthetic labor. Conclusion: This study explores important themes that emerged after doing a comprehensive review of the literature published on “aesthetic labor.” Emotional labor discrimination, which is closely associated with aesthetic labor, is the area that has garnered the interest of researchers. However, the education system and the value it assigns to aesthetic labor constitute a further area of inquiry. Understanding how aesthetic labor is perceived and performed in the context of social media, notably photo and video-sharing platforms, is an additional crucial area of study.

This paper addresses itself to literature on ‘aesthetic labour’ in order to extend understanding of embodied labour practices. Through a case study of fashion modelling in New York and London we argue for an extension of the concept to address what we see as problematic absences and limitations. Thus, we seek to extend its range, both in terms of occupations it can be applied to, not just interactive service work and organizational workers, and its conceptual scope, beyond the current concern with superficial appearances at work and within organizations. First, we attend to the ways in which these freelancers have to adapt to fluctuating aesthetic trends and different clients and commodify themselves in the absence of a corporate aesthetic. The successful models are usually the ones who take on the responsibility of managing their bodies, becoming ‘enterprising’ with respect to all aspects of their embodied self. Secondly, unlike Dean (2005) who similarly extends aesthetic labour to female actors, we see conceptual problems with the term that need addressing. We argue that the main proponents of aesthetic labour have a poorly conceived notion of embodiment and that current conceptualizations produce a reductive account of the aesthetic labourer as a ‘cardboard cut-out’, and aesthetic labour as superficial work on the body's surface. In contrast, drawing on phenomenology, we examine how aesthetic labour involves the entire embodied self, or ‘body/self’, and analyse how the effort to keep up appearances, while physical, has an emotional content to it. Besides the physical and emotional effort of body maintenance, the imperative to project ‘personality’ requires many of the skills in emotional labour described by Hochschild (1983) . Thirdly, aesthetic labour entails on-going production of the body/self, not merely a superficial performance at work. The enduring nature of this labour is evidenced by the degree of body maintenance required to conform to the fashion model aesthetic (dieting, for example) and is heightened by the emphasis placed on social networking in freelancing labour, which demands workers who are ‘always on’. In this way, unlike corporate workers, we suggest that the freelance aesthetic labourer cannot walk away from their product, which is their entire embodied self. Thus, in these ways we see aesthetic labour adding to, or extending, rather than supplanting emotional labour, as Witz et al. (2003) would have it.

Aesthetic labor refers to the process in which workers’ appearances make the core of employability. After two decades of development, the theory has yielded outstanding theoretical and empirical achievements. The review briefly investigates the trajectory of the construction, the debates, and the unfinished agenda of aesthetic labor. Introduced at the dawn of the 21st century, aesthetic labor ambitiously re-conceptualizes the emotional labor paradigm by accentuating the role “looking good and sounding right” plays in the new economy. It challenges the analytic frame of emotional labor by foregrounding the importance of corporeal attributes and the embodied dispositions of workers during service encounters. However, the theory is also challenged for its dominating feminist scope and the one-sided accentuation of the dysfunctions of society. A growing volume of research has diverted the attention on the experiences of male workers in aesthetic labor, and some, at the same time, are attempting to justify the prevalence of aesthetic labor by examining the agency of workers during the labor process. Comparative case studies, as well as the scope of cultural approach, are considered two promising research methodologies for aesthetic labor studies. Although the pursuit of beauty has always accompanied human development, the value of a “good look” has never been more prominent in our age. The booming of beauty industries such as make-up, modeling, and fashion has witnessed how a desirable physical appearance helps countless men and women ascend the social ladder from almost the bottom to the top. An increasing volume of literature focuses on the phenomenon, among which the term “aesthetic labor” stands out as one of the most influential theories that capture the characteristic of occupations based on the never-ending polishment of physical appearance. After two decades of development, the theory of aesthetic labor has stimulated volumes of research examining the role of the body and physical beauty in interactive service work. The review essay aims to sketch the breakthroughs that the theory have made, the debates centered on the theory and the future directions that might fill the gap

Amid the growing literature on the costs and rewards of physical appearance for labor market outcomes, an economistic emphasis on looks as an investment strategy has gained prominence. The concept of aesthetic labor is a useful sociological intervention for understanding how the value of certain looks is constructed, and how looks matter for social stratification. Aesthetic labor is the practice of screening, managing, and controlling workers on the basis of their physical appearance. The concept advances research on the service economy by moving beyond a focus on emotions to emphasize worker corporeality. This article first untangles aesthetic labor from related concepts, including body work, emotional labor, and embodied cultural capital. Next is a review of three contexts in which scholars have applied aesthetic labor to the workplace: the organization, freelance labor, and the market. Because it situates the value of beauty in context, aesthetic labor foregrounds those power relations that define aesthetics, such as class, race, and gender. The concept incorporates insights from field theories of bodily capital, such that aesthetic labor denaturalizes beauty and seeks to explain the processes through which looks translate into economic and symbolic rewards.

Ballet is an elite and predominantly white profession that has mirrored history. Black dancers have been historically excluded and remain severely underrepresented through controlling images, discrimination, and marginalization. As an occupation, ballet demands intensive emotional and aesthetic labor. This research relies on interviews to better understand the experiences of Black women in ballet in context. It specifically examines the ways that Black dancers negotiate two forms of labor that have typically been theorized separately: emotional and aesthetic labor. Theoretically, these findings build on and challenge conceptualizations of emotional and aesthetic labor as separately theorized social processes. In this article, I show how emotional and aesthetic labor are on dramatic display through Black ballet dancers’ workplace experiences.

ABSTRACTThis article studies rural migrant women working in the Shanghai beauty parlour industry, focusing on how this industry emphasises affective labour and articulates it along lines of migration, gender and seniority. The analysis looks at three types of female beauty workers: apprentices, senior beauticians, and entrepreneurs. Bringing together Hardt and Negri’s (2004) theorisation of affective labour and Yang Jie’s (2011) notion of aesthetic labour, this article investigates how the affective and aesthetic labour demanded from these migrant women affects their minds and bodies, and their position and value in the marriage market. On the basis of fieldwork conducted in Shanghai, the article begins by exploring the ways in which the demand of Shanghai beauty parlour industry for affective labour impacts the ability of rural migrant women to enter into other forms of affective relationships. It goes on to argue that affective labour in this industry is not wholly negative, but modifies bodies and minds in ways that can be both oppressive and enabling, depending on, among other things, the beauty worker’s level of seniority. Finally, the article proposes that, in the beauty parlour industry, there is a reciprocality with affective labour that includes the workers as well as the clients.

In this article, we identify the importance of aesthetic labour to the self-employed fitness industry personal trainer (PT), detailing the ways in which the PT trades on their own physical capital. We examine how these discussions relate to the aesthetic and material dimensions of body work (that is to say, enacted on and through bodies) and the ways in which affective labour, inherent to this type of service work, intersects or delimits physical capital and the embodied competencies of the PT. We argue that the work of PTs helps to deepen emerging discussions and provides a more nuanced and contextualised understanding of affective and aesthetic labour. We assert that the confluences and contradictions between the affective and aesthetic dimensions of work in a fitness industry setting demonstrate that excessive physical capital is perceived as negative for the professional identity of PTs. In conclusion, implications for further research and management are discussed.

Drawing on participant observation at a women's plus-size clothing store, “Real Style,” this article draws on the unique experiences of plus-sized women in their roles as workers, managers, and customers, to examine how mainstream beauty standards, body-accepting branding, and customers' diverse feeling rules shape service interactions. Despite branding that promoted prideful appreciation for “Real” bodies, the influence of these body-accepting discourses was constrained by women's internalization of mainstream fat stigma, resulting in an environment characterized by deep ambivalence toward larger body size. This ambivalence allowed hierarchies between women to be reified, rather than dissolved; although plus-sized employees and customers expressed gratitude to have Real Style as a “safe space” to work and shop, workers experienced gender segregation of jobs, and thinner employees were privileged with special tasks. Further, managers and white (but not black or Latina) customers used body-disparaging “fat talk” to elicit workers' emotional labor while confronting thinner workers for defying aesthetic expectations. This research offers a more nuanced understanding of the ties between aesthetic labor and emotional labor, while highlighting some of the factors that prevent stigmatized groups from successfully reclaiming status within consumer contexts.

This paper draws on qualitative survey and interview data with 72 participants focusing on feminine body and beauty work practices in the UK’s first Covid-19 ‘lockdown’ in 2020. The data suggest that the affective dimensions of beauty were intensified, accelerated, and expanded during this period. Feminine beauty and body work was deployed to produce desired affects: namely positivity, productivity, and the elimination of stress and anxiety. I argue, therefore, that beauty practices became oriented less around aesthetic labour – the work of improving and maintaining appearance – and more explicitly and substantially a project of affective labour – the deep feeling work of generating and maintaining a disposition that aligns with the needs of capital. Using the lens of affective labour provides insight into the way that the affective harms of the pandemic crisis were individualised and managed by feminine selves through practices of beauty and body work. Participants’ affective labour projects produced two interrelated sets of immaterial outcomes. First, they helped maintain a ‘market ready’ set of positive and productive dispositions that were particularly crucial for those subjects in heightened conditions of precarity, insecurity or isolation. Second, affective labour was key to the deeply gendered, racialised and classed moral formulation of the ‘good’ pandemic citizen who would, and could, follow the directive to ‘stay at home’ in order not only to care for themselves and others, but to use the ‘opportunity’ of lockdown to transform and improve the self.

The ways that individuals manage their behaviours in the workplace have received increasing amounts of attention since Hochschild’s initial work on emotional labour. Since that time, aesthetic labour has been explored and varying forms of emotional labour or emotion work have been researched. Progressing this area of research into the working circumstances of individuals with chronic illness has unearthed three new modes of working which are based on similar principles to emotion work and aesthetic labour. These are called adaptive work, asymptomatic work and symptomatic work. Working with chronic illness is a unique experience and requires the use of skills beyond those normally utilised in the deployment of emotion/work or aesthetic labour. This paper will discuss on adaptive work, asymptomatic work and symptomatic work and relate them to the workforce experiences of women with chronic illness.

This article analyses a range of different meanings attached to images of erotic dance, with a particular focus on the ‘impression management’ ( Goffman 1959 ) enacted by dancers. It presents a visual analysis of the work of a female erotic performer in a lesbian erotic dance venue in the UK. Still photographs, along with observational data and interviews, convey the complexity and skill of an erotic dancer's diverse gendered and sexualised performances. The visual data highlights the extensive ‘aesthetic labour’ ( Nickson et al. 2001 ) and ‘emotional labour’ ( Hochschild 1983 ) the dancer must put in to constructing her work ‘self’. However, a more ambitious use of the visual is identified: the dancer's own use of images of her work. This use of the visual by dancers themselves highlights a more complex ‘impression management’ strategy undertaken by a dancer and brings into question the separation of ‘real’ and ‘work’ ‘selves’ in erotic dance.

When we put on a good face we are claiming a set of approved social attributes – presenting an image of who/what we wish to be accepted as and taken for, by others. As Erving Goffman puts it, we have a good face when we fit an image others have of, for example, our profession, by making a good showing of ourselves (Goffman, 1967: 5). There is a large body of literature on the emotional labour of controlling and showing an emotional good face, that is, the work to preserve a professional and a corporate ‘face’, even if that entails hiding or disguising one’s personal emotions. Another smaller body of literature, building on the concept of emotional labour, is that describing aesthetic labour. Aesthetic labour is the selling of one’s embodied ‘face’, or approved social attributes, to create and preserve a professional and/or corporate image – often described as ‘looking good and sounding right’. Emotional and aesthetic literacy are fundamentally communication concepts requiring sophisticated perceptual as well as messaging skills. Using hairstylists as exemplars, I examine the close and personal relationships stylists enjoy with their clients as they toil, behind the chair but in the mirror, gathering insight into the relationship between emotional labour and aesthetic labour, and to the acquisition of emotional and aesthetic literacy that is essential to the effective performance of presentational labour.

ABSTRACT: This article studies how style, taste, and “quality” are negotiated during meetings between Black fashion designers and their bespoke mid-market clients in Johannesburg. It views the parties to the negotiation as embedded in a broader socioeconomic context, arguing that the meetings imply and have implications to participants’ status. The Black fashion designer field only appeared at the turn of the twentieth century in the wake of the post-apartheid opening of occupational spaces for previously marginalized peoples. These societal transformations also led to growth in demand for designer services among those who aspire to or are experiencing upward social mobility in the public or the private sectors. The article employs and redefines the concepts of “aesthetic labor,” “emotional labor,” and “taste work” to analyze clients’ and designers’ efforts at creating “fitting” “solutions” for the clients’ desire to “shine” in various social settings. Simultaneously, in shaping styles for their customers and themselves, the designers strengthen their position as experts with the talent and authority to make aesthetic judgments. The article adds to the literature on aesthetic labor and taste work a view from a context in which the social structure is in greater flux than in many of the contexts in the Global North that are the focus of existing research. It argues that the long-term European influence in South African society and dress codes remains observable in the designers’ judgement on appropriate styles for mid-market or middle-stratum people, although their admittance of subtle individualizing or Africanizing references does speak of and enact slight shifts in the codes. Finally, the article aims to shows that rather than an inherent property of an object, “quality” is an interactionally produced valuation entangled with considerations of taste, class, and gender as well as the historicity of aesthetic codes.

Gender, Work & OrganizationVolume 16, Issue 3 p. 291-299 Editorial: Aesthetic Labour, Emotional Labour and Masculinity Dennis Nickson, Dennis NicksonSearch for more papers by this authorMarek Korczynski, Marek KorczynskiSearch for more papers by this author Dennis Nickson, Dennis NicksonSearch for more papers by this authorMarek Korczynski, Marek KorczynskiSearch for more papers by this author First published: 15 April 2009 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0432.2009.00445.xCitations: 20Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume16, Issue3May 2009Pages 291-299 RelatedInformation

ABSTRACTFat scholar’s studying the lives of fat individuals are often perceived as biased further excluding fat people’s experiences from the production of knowledge. However, it is our social standpoint and social location as fat researchers that make it possible for us to offer a more critical perspective regarding presupposed “facts,” giving voice to a marginalized population. In this paper, I use autoethnography and standpoint theory to reflect on my own social location and experiences as a young, fat woman finding my voice in fat activism while working in the plus-size retail store, Equally Plus. I, like many of my fat coworkers, was disappointed in the extensive diet talk and fat talk used by customers and fellow coworkers at Equally Plus. We found ourselves taking on emotion work to manage our own nagging commitments to fat talk, in addition to aesthetic and emotional labor. To combat internalized fat phobia, I show how emotional and aesthetic labor can be used as an act of resistance by “flipping the script” on fat talk by acknowledging and accepting fat in a way that challenges diet talk and fat-shaming in a more concrete and personally meaningful way. My insider and outsider positionality and social location enabled me to place fat individuals at the center of my activism by engaging in subversive behavior that raised awareness, yet still benefited the corporation.