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Consumption and Identity at Work, by Paul du Gay. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Communications, 1996. 213 pp. S65.00 cloth. ISBN: 0-8039-7927-4. S22.95 paper. ISBN: 0-80397928-2.
Because cultural sociology and cultural studies use incommensurable analytic styles to investigate similar questions-the tortoise and hare, respectively, of the culture disciplines-each often takes an active uninterest in the other. Yet the interstice of these two fields can be particularly fertile terrain. Paul du Gay's Consumption and Identity at Work-a Birmingham school-inspired, ethnographic study of work identity in the service economy-is situated precisely at this productive crossroads.
Du Gay's study of the character of service work begins with the promising thesis that service industries are distinguished by the blurring of boundaries between production and consumption. But he gives this thesis an odd reading: Consumption impacts service work both because of the dominance of a new management style that treats employees as "sovereign consumers" and because service workers can be understood as "consumers of work." His ethnographic study of two consumer goods retailers, then, consists of juxtaposing the "top-down" management strategies used to empower employees to act as entrepreneurs with "bottom-up" tactics that retail employees use to maintain control over the work environment. This...