Class Acts: Service and Inequality in Luxury Hotels
By Rachel Sherman
Publisher: University of California Press
Number Of Pages: 373
Publication Date: 2007-01-17
ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0520247817
ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780520247819
Binding: Hardcover
In this lively study, Rachel Sherman goes behind the scenes in two urban luxury hotels to give a nuanced picture of the workers who care for and cater to wealthy guests by providing seemingly unlimited personal attention. Drawing on in-depth interviews and extended ethnographic research in a range of hotel jobs, including concierge, bellperson, and housekeeper, Sherman gives an insightful analysis of what exactly luxury service consists of, how managers organize its production, and how workers and guests negotiate the inequality between them. She finds that workers employ a variety of practices to assert a powerful sense of self, including playing games, comparing themselves to other workers and guests, and forming meaningful and reciprocal relations with guests. Through their contact with hotel staff, guests learn how to behave in the luxury environment and come to see themselves as deserving of luxury consumption. These practices, Sherman argues, help make class inequality seem normal, something to be taken for granted. Throughout, Class Acts sheds new light on the complex relationship between class and service work, an increasingly relevant topic in light of the growing economic inequality in the United States that underlies luxury consumption.
Summary: A Classy Act
Rating: 5
I just finished reading Class Acts: Service and Inequality in Luxury Hotels, and I mean reading it: Acknowlegments, Introduction, Chapters 1-6, Conclusion, Appendices A, B & C, and Notes. Okay, I did not read References and Index, but close enough.
What a great ethnography! What a great voice! The writer, Rachel Sherman, manages to be impressively objective and fair as she observes and participates in the service economy of the luxury hotel. Since I am an arm chair-bleeding heart liberal, I wanted there to be a clear demarcation between "good guys" and "bad guys," but Sherman paints a far more complicated and nuanced picture of the social dynamics at work in the luxury service sector. As a result, the Conclusion provides a satisfying critique, since it is in this section that Sherman lets her views be known. I find this admirable because it indicates this researcher's ability to distinguish between observation, analysis, and critique.
Class Acts is a scholarly work, yet the writing style is extremely lucid. Yes, the author uses jargon -- intersubjectivity, habitus, interpellated -- but what is really cool is how Sherman uses language to mirror some of the class distinctions she is writing about, at times conveying theory and abstraction and at others conveying terms like "ripped off" and "pissed." The contrast is refreshing.
Sherman also does an excellent job of sign postng. In a straightforward way, she reminds the reader of who is who, foreshadows ideas to come, and acknowledges ideas previously introduced. I found all these textual reminders to be helpful. Not only that, but Sherman offers advice on how to tip in the Notes.
Finally, the author does a great job weaving the motif of movies and image making throughout the text -- from Pretty Woman to My Dinner with Andre -- to underscore both the transformative power of the luxury hotel setting and the nature of work and class distinctions.
Summary: A great book on how we "perform" our social class...
Rating: 5
"Class Acts: Service and Inequality in Luxury Hotels" is a captivating look at how class gets played out in a particular setting -- and yet it has a lot to say about how we all relate to our social and economic class (whether or not we work or stay at luxury hotels). It's a sociological study, and though I'm not a sociologist, I found it accessible, not too academic, and packed with interesting anecdotes.
The author, Rachel Sherman, talks about the luxury hotel as a kind of "theater" where guests and workers act out class relations and fill their own needs. For their part, workers strive to protect their dignity, even as they are subservient on the job to very wealthy guests. To accomplish this, workers may take pride in their skills, criticize guests behind their backs, or--as discussed in an especially fascinating section of the book--turn their jobs into a kind of strategic game. Meanwhile, guests rationalize the lavish service they enjoy by, for example, treating workers as equals or even friends--in the process "erasing" class differences or acting as if they don't exist. The book could have stopped there and been really interesting; but it goes further, and shows how workers and guests come to depend on each other to perform (or even become) their roles.
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