Adina Batnitzky

Division, Segmentation, and Interpellation: The Embodied Labors of Migrant Workers in a Greater London Hotel

Abstract In this article, we explore the ways in which a divided and segmented migrant labor force is assembled to serve guests in a London hotel. We draw on previous studies of hotel work, as well as on cultural analyses of the ways in which employers and managers use stereotypical assumptions about the embodied attributes of workers to name workers as suitable for particular types of labor. We argue that a dual process of interpellation operates within service-sector workplaces that is reinforced and resisted in daily social practices and relationships between managers, workers, and guests in a hotel. The article, which draws on a case study of employment practices in a large London hotel, looks in detail at the micropolitics of everyday working lives, the representation of workers of different nationalities, and the performance of service work.

Internationalization and the Spaces of Temporary Labour : The Global Assembly of a Local Workforce

An increasing number of low-status consumer service jobs in the UK are undertaken by economic migrants, who are often recruited through the aegis of employment agencies. This article explores the use of migrant agency workers by a London hotel and a hospital, looking at the ways in which such a labour force is recruited and assembled in parts of the service sector in Greater London. It argues that even in the most locally-based of service-sector jobs, typically involving face to face interactions, new sets of transnational connections are producing a globalized labour force.

Obesity and household roles: gender and social class in Morocco

Often referred to as the developing worlds new burden of disease, obesity constitutes a major and growing health epidemic in Morocco, in particular for women (22% of women versus 8% of men). Through an analysis of qualitative data, I demonstrate how gender roles influence obesity risk in the Moroccan context. Current social and economic theories, including the nutrition transition theory, are inadequate in explaining the persistent gender differentials in health status across time and place. I suggest that Moroccan womens higher prevalence of obesity is predominantly the outcome of different risks acquired from their distinct roles. In the Moroccan context, we can gain insight into how men and women divide household labour and how the overall non-egalitarian nature of social roles may deleteriously affect womens health. I hypothesise that marital status, age and socioeconomic status determine Moroccan womens household roles and help to explain why women are more likely to be obese than men. The main findings support this hypothesis and demonstrate the interactive relationship between culture and structure in influencing obesity risk.

Migration, nursing, institutional discrimination and emotional/affective labour: ethnicity and labour stratification in the UK National Health Service

The UK has a long history of recruiting foreign nurses to meet labour shortages. This article explores the ways in which a combination of institutional discrimination in recruitment and promotion and daily interactions and practices in the workplace practices constructed migrant nurses as less skilled and inappropriately embodied and so restricted their overall career trajectories. Based on qualitative research with migrant nurses of Caribbean and Asian origins who came to the UK in the post-war era, we show how race and ethnicity were the basis of initial restrictions in training leading to permanent stratification in the nursing labour force. In the interactive and emotional labours of caring, foreign-born nurses are subjected to stereotypical and normative assumptions about their attributes and skills from colleagues, managers and patients that affect their opportunities to progress within the National Health Service. We thus combine an analysis of institutional discrimination with an understanding of cultural practices in the workplace to explain their disadvantaged position.

Flexible and Strategic Masculinities: The Working Lives and Gendered Identities of Male Migrants in London

It is well established that the workplace provides an important site for the production of gender identities. However, it is less-well understood how this identity construction might operate in the context of migrant workers, who bring with them particular notions of gender from their countries of origin that interact with ‘local’ gender practices. Through an in-depth case study of a London hotel and hospital, masculinity and economic status were observed to be intricately related in the ways in which male migrants described their work performances in terms of either ‘womens work’ or ‘lower-class work’. Men originating from middle- and upper-class economic positions were observed to be ‘flexible’ with their economic identity and take on work considered ‘lower-class’ in their country of origin in order to contest their gender identities in the UK. In contrast, men who migrated for economic gain and had family obligations to send remittances were observed to be ‘strategically’ flexible with their gender identities and often performed what they considered to be ‘womens work’ in order to be able to fulfil economic expectations. We suggest that a migrants willingness and/or desire to enact ‘flexible and strategic masculinities’ is tied to the perceived trade-offs of his/her employment in the UK.

The emergence of an ‘ethnic economy’? The spatial relationships of migrant workers in London's health and hospitality sectors

Abstract This paper examines how the globalized nature of Londons service sector redefines spatial relationships for recent migrants working in the health and hospitality industries. Findings from the qualitative data demonstrate that recent temporary migrants to the UK employ broader strategies to secure employment than accounted for by current theories. The migrants in our case studies overwhelmingly utilized global and local recruitment and employment agencies, as well as sought employment in industries already established as ‘ethnic economies’. We suggest that this might be attributed to a lack of interaction with established co-ethnic immigrant communities; temporary migration trajectories; and living arrangements with co-migrants. We conclude by emphasizing the need to broaden our understanding of ethnic economies and social networks in light of these changing spatial relationships that have emerged through the globalization of the service sector in the UK.

Migration, Employment and Gender Divisions of Labour

How is women’s employment shaped by family and domestic responsibilities? This book, written by leading experts in the field, examines twenty-five years of change in women’s employment and addresses the challenges facing women today.