IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v24y2010i1p65-84.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rethinking ‘mobile work’: boundaries of space, time and social relation in the working lives of mobile hairstylists

Author

Listed:
  • Rachel Lara Cohen

    (University of Warwick, R.L.Cohen@warwick.ac.uk)

Abstract

This article investigates the relationship between spatial mobility and the labour process, developing a typology of ‘mobile work’. Working while mobile is a largely white-collar (and well researched) phenomenon whereas mobility as work and mobility for work involve more diverse occupations and have been omitted from sociological analysis of mobile work. The article explores the range of work involving spatial mobility before focusing on a hitherto unexamined form of mobility for work, mobile hairstyling. Relationships between mobility, employment status and the construction of spatial, social and temporal work-life boundaries are excavated. It is shown that previous arguments linking mobile work with decorporealisation or unboundedness are inadequate, applicable primarily to working while mobile. Other types of mobile work may or may not corrode work-life boundaries; whether they do depends in part on workers’ income security. Data are drawn from the Labour Force Survey and interviews with self-employed mobile hairstylists.

Suggested Citation

  • Rachel Lara Cohen, 2010. "Rethinking ‘mobile work’: boundaries of space, time and social relation in the working lives of mobile hairstylists," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 24(1), pages 65-84, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:24:y:2010:i:1:p:65-84
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://wes.sagepub.com/content/24/1/65.abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:24:y:2010:i:1:p:65-84. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.