‘They’ve been with me the whole journey’: temporality, emotional labour and hairdressing work

Harness, O.; Jamie, K.; McMurray, R.

doi:10.1177/0950017020955081

‘They’ve been with me the whole journey’: temporality, emotional labour and hairdressing work

Harness, O.; Jamie, K.; McMurray, R.

Authors

O. Harness

Dr Kimberly Jamie kimberly.jamie@durham.ac.uk
Associate Professor

R. McMurray

Contributors

Oonagh Harness oonagh.m.harness@durham.ac.uk
Other

Abstract

The role of time in organisational and relational development remains an understudied component of work and employment. In response, this article draws attention to the ways that temporality informs relations between workers and clients in service work. Drawing on data from interviews and observations with hair stylists in salons located in the North East of England from 2016 to 2018, we provide a nuanced account of emotional service work by considering the role of the temporal dynamics of recurrence and experience. Describing that which we label ‘relational trajectories’, we show the role of time in developing more authentic service performances. We conclude that acknowledging time allows for a more refined conceptual understanding of how emotional labour is performed based on an appreciation of how relations develop and change. Emotional labour is positioned as highly nuanced and adaptive in its responses to the specificities of relational trajectories that unfold over time.

Citation

Harness, O., Jamie, K., & McMurray, R. (2021). ‘They’ve been with me the whole journey’: temporality, emotional labour and hairdressing work. Work, Employment and Society, 35(6), 1073-1090. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017020955081

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Jul 31, 2020
Online Publication Date	Nov 24, 2020
Publication Date	Dec 1, 2021
Deposit Date	Aug 10, 2020
Publicly Available Date	Sep 1, 2020
Journal	Work, Employment and Society
Print ISSN	0950-0170
Electronic ISSN	1469-8722
Publisher	SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	35
Issue	6
Pages	1073-1090
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017020955081
Public URL	https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1263887

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This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).