The Managed Hand:Control And Discipline Of Labor Body And Resistance Of Labor-A Comparative Study Of Xijiaomei In City Of Changsha

While the transformation of China into a global manufacturing powerhouse is well known,the massive growth in its service sector is less widely publicized and understood.While most of the previous studies of service sector paid extremely attention to low-skill,low-wage and bad-working environment,and gendered jobs,such as salon workers,waitress and retail saleswomen,few attentions are paid to an indispensable part of service sector,"expert service work".This study will explore the experiences of a relatively new form of semiprofessionals,foot masseuses(xijiaomei in Chinese),to advance our understandings of the complexities of interactive service work.Foot massage(zuliao,means healing from feet),is a traditional Chinese healing and protection technique,which has been widely practiced for hundreds of years.With their knowledge of acupressure points,joints and ligaments,foot masseuses can use various techniques to stimulate parts of the body by massage different acupressure points on the feet that are assumed connected to the body.xijiaomei is a demeaning name for foot masseuses in China,most of those are young migrant female workers moving from rural to cities.xijiaomei is a compelling example of the increasing number of occupations that,different from scholar's earlier prediction about worker deskilling and prevalent studies of emotion involvement,require workers to use a combination of physical labor,emotional labor and specialized knowledge to provide customized service for individual clients.Combining ethnography with archival analysis through the use of interviews,participant observation,and official reports and statistics,this study will provide an extension to the extant understanding of service work by highlighting the unique features of hybrid forms of work emerging in the postindustrial labor market.This study will examines a range of service interactions that occur in the process of supplying service to explore how workers demonstrated their professionalism and negotiated the competing demands of their jobs.Additionally,this project sets out to analyze the dynamic relationship among xijiaomei,clients,managers,and other actors involved in the labor process,and extends implications about xijiaomei who are in a rapidly expanding,but not yet fully credentialized,profession and how they manage their selves to legitimate their contributions for potential clients,and furthermore,how their professionalism enrich the strategies of resistance to labor control from both of managers and clients.Xijiaomei,referring to young girls coming from rural areas and working in cities and who wash and clean feet of clients,signals a gendered and rural-urban inequality of this job.Through the study I hope to illuminate the issues about how gender,citizenship and expertise are accomplished during the interactive service process.