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<p>List of Illustrations vi</p> <p>Series Editors’ Preface vii</p> <p>Preface and Acknowledgements viii</p> <p>1 Service Employment and the Commoditization of the Body 1</p> <p><b>Part I Locating Service Work 23</b></p> <p>2 The Rise of the Service Economy 25</p> <p>3 Thinking Through Embodiment: Explaining Interactive Service Employment 49</p> <p><b>Part II High-Touch Servicing Work in Private and Public Spaces 77</b></p> <p>4 Up Close and Personal: Intimate Work in the Home 79</p> <p>5 Selling Bodies I: Sex Work 101</p> <p>6 Selling Bodies II: Masculine Strength and Licensed Violence 129</p> <p><b>Part III High-Touch Servicing Work in Specialist Spaces 159</b></p> <p>7 Bodies in Sickness and in Health: Care Work and Beauty Work 161</p> <p>8 Warm Bodies: Doing Deference in Routine Interactive Work 191</p> <p>9 Conclusions: Bodies in Place 212</p> <p>References 229</p> <p>Index 256</p>

<p>"Nevertheless, the book is accessibly written, and the variety of themes it explores will ensure it has broad appeal among undergraduates and postgraduates studying social division, gender, service work, labour relations and their relationships. The book also provides academics working in and across the disciplines of sociology and human geography with a good overview of research into interactive work and its implications in contemporary society." (<i>Work, Employment & Society</i>, 25 March 2011)</p> <p>"Between the covers of this beautifully crafted book is a thoughtful, innovative, and thorough analysis of high-touch interactive service work that draws on numerous case studies and ethnographies, mostly from the United Kingdom, and on the author's own original research. . . . This ambitious book is insightful and informative, and it makes a valuable contribution to the study of work in contemporary capitalist societies". (<i>Canadian Journal of Sociology</i>, 2010)</p>

<b>Linda McDowell</b> is Professor of Human Geography and Director of the Graduate School of Geography at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St. John's College, where she is also Director of the Research Centre.  Widely published, McDowell's books include <i>Capital Culture: Gender at Work in the City</i> (1997), <i>Redundant Masculinities? Employment Change and White Working Class Youth</i> (2003) and <i>Hard Labour</i> (2005).

<b><i>Working Bodies</i></b> examines the theoretical underpinnings and empirical nature of the noticeable shift to interactive and embodied forms of work in service economies. Introductory chapters explore the transformation of labour markets in advanced industrial economies, the arguments for and against a radical shift in the nature of employment, the growth of inequality and assess the growing significance of the body/work relationship. Later chapters consist of a series of mainly UK-based case studies of interactive and embodied servicing work - from childcare and sex work to boxing, nursing and low paid jobs in hospitality. <p>Combining geographical and sociological theories with empirical research, the author explores the interconnections between class, ethnicity, gender in the construction of workplace identities, as well as the spatial division of labor in the 'servicing' economy. Informed by the latest scholarship, <i>Working Bodies</i> is an fascinating exploration of the growing significance of low-paid and often casualised forms of employment in the twenty-first century economy, challenging the insistence on new forms of knowledge work in conventional accounts of labour market transformations.</p>

<p>There are many books on service employment, but very few like this one. In this beautifully written and thoughtful book Linda McDowell shows, in turn, how such employment should not be seen as a new phenomenon, brings the cares, emotions and exploitations that go into servicing the bodies of others (children, consumers, elders, families, buyers of sexual services) close into view, and outlines a complex range of attributes - from skills and capabilities to personal and bodily features - that now count as essential employment requirements. The humdrum comes alive in the hands of this skilled ethnographer of work."<br />—<b>Ash Amin, Durham University</b></p> <p>Linda McDowell's state-of-the-art discussion demonstrates not only the importance of embodiment for current understandings of work but also the centrality of the workplace for the study of embodiment. Her analysis of high-touch interactive service work is comprehensive, concise and compelling, drawing on a wealth of case studies as well as her own original research. This timely volume raises a host of fascinating issues and will be an invaluable resource across the social sciences."<br />—<b>Miriam Glucksmann, University of Essex</b></p>

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