Workshop: Gender, Service Work and the Cultural Economy
Conference Outline
21-22 February 2008, University of Manchester
The aim of this workshop is to explore the social and cultural issues within the economic changes that have given rise to service work, which is increasingly becoming one of the largest sources of employment generation. Given the feminization of employment, women workers comprise a large proportion of the service sector, thus making an important contribution to the global cultural economy.
The restructuring of the labour market and the labour process has seen moves to transfer some aspects of service sector work to less developed countries as firms search for cheaper and more flexible ways to accumulate capital. Much of the front-line work is carried out by women since their social and emotional skills are often designated as gender attributes. In this context, gender becomes embedded in the restructuring of global service production and is mobilized as an economic resource for companies.
It is our intention to bring together people from related, but not necessarily overlapping, research areas and speakers are carrying out significant work in varying combinations of gender, service work and the cultural economy.
Plenary Speakers:Ursula Huws (London Metropolitan University), Diane Perrons (London School of Economics and Political Science)
Workshop Programme
Thursday 21st February
From 10:30 am |
Registration and refreshments |
11:00-11:15 11:15-12:15 |
Introduction and welcome to CRESC and the workshop Plenary Session 1 Chair: Natalie Mitev (LSE) Diane Perrons (London School of Economics and Political Science), Reflections on gender and pay inequalities in the contemporary service economy. |
12:15-12:45 |
Session 1 Chair: Natalie Mitev (LSE) Debra Howcroft (CRESC, University of Manchester) and Helen Richardson (University of Salford), Gender, service work and the cultural economy |
12:45-1:30pm |
LUNCH |
1:30-3pm |
Session 2 Chair: Julie Froud (CRESC/University of Manchester) Laurie Cohen, M.N.Ravishankar and Amal El-Sawad (University of Loughborough), Examining resistance, accommodation and the pursuit of aspiration in the Indian IT-BPO space: reflections on two case studies Leo McCann (University of Manchester), Grinding the gears of the financial machine: Offshoring, work intensification, and attempted resistance in UK insurers Juliet Webster (Work and Equality Research), Women’s jobs in retail and financial services: similarities and variations across Europe |
3-3:30pm |
TEA BREAK |
3:30-5pm |
Session 3 Chair: Sarah Green (CRESC/University of Manchester) Hazel Gillard (London School of Economics and Political Science), Contemporary distortions of equity: gender and network engineer training in Britain Shoba Arun (Manchester Metropolitan University), Cosmopolitanism and Indian Workers in the NHS Marek Korczynski (University of Loughborough), Work in the service economy: towards a sociology that takes customer-worker relations seriously |
Friday 22nd February
09:30-10:00 |
Coffee |
10:00-12:00 |
Session 4 Chair: Debra Howcroft (CRESC/University of Manchester) Susanne Langer (University of Manchester),From back-office support to shared services: findings from the Women in Shared Services (WiSS) project Alison Adam (University of Salford), Women as Knowledge Workers: Some Historical Reflections Marisa D’Mello (University of Oslo), “Are you married?” Gender and mobility relations in a global software development firm in India |
12:00-1:00pm |
LUNCH |
1.00-2:00pm |
Plenary Session 3 Chair: Helen Richardson (University of salford) Ursula Huws (The Working Lives Research Institute, London Metropolitan University), The new global division of labour |
2:00 |
THANKS AND CLOSING REMARKS |
Abstracts
Please Click here for the list of abstracts
Venue Infomation
The Workshop is taking place at the Manchester Business School, Room 2.40
Finding the Manchester Business School
MBS West is situated on Booth Street West and is the main building of the MBS Campus. It houses the main hotel accommodation rooms, lecture and conference suites and resturant facilities. It is also the home of our MBA programme.
MBS is number 29 on the University of Manchester Campus Map, click here
Registration
If you are interested to register for this workshop please fill out the booking form and send it to the CRESC Office. If you wish to make your payment with a credit card you also need to fill out a credit card form.
This workshop is free for CRESC Theme members.
Booking fees (incl. lunches): Full - £45, Concessions - £20, Day - £25
Accommodation can be booked through CRESC at the Manchester Business School, University of Manchester at a rate of £50 for B&B inlcuding VAT per person per day. Please use the booking form to book your accommodation.
For more information on how to get to the Manchester Business School Accomodation please go to http://www.mbs.ac.uk/aboutus/mbs-campus.aspx