The Promise of Diversity
How Brazilian Brand Capitalism Affects Precarious Identities and Work
1st Edition
Published on 15. February 2017
298 pages
978-3-8394-3754-4 (ISBN)
Description
Nicolas Wasser critically examines how sexual and racial identities are currently being articulated through capitalist brands and labor. On the basis of an ethnographic case study about a Brazilian fashion enterprise, he shows how young - lesbian, gay and black - sales employees align themselves with the ambivalent promises put forward by diversity management. Their affective labor, the study argues, is at the center of new and globally unfolding regimes of the precarious. Readers will thus find a rich sociological account from the Global South on how neoliberal logics of self-optimization both traverse and fuel the aspirations of the minoritized.
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Nicolas Wasser
The Promise of Diversity
How Brazilian Brand Capitalism Affects Precarious Identities and Work
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02/2017
1st Edition
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Person
Nicolas Wasser (PhD UFRJ/Brazil) is a member of the Graduiertenkolleg Gender Studies at the University of Basel. His research focuses on affective labor, LGBT issues, precarity, and difference in Latin America.
Content
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1. Introduction
- 1.1 Identity markets and their discontents
- 1.2 Culture, hegemony and (sexual) difference
- 1.3 Notes on method and research procedure
- 2. Governing through desires Brands, identities and the case of Visibly Hot
- 2.1 The brand as a mode of conduct
- 2.1.1 How commodities obtained a life of their own
- 2.1.2 Behavioral science and the shift to the consumer's needs
- 2.1.3 Media and the social fabric of the everyday
- 2.1.4 The role of lifestyles and political stances
- 2.1.5 The corporate brand
- 2.1.6 Branding and the body
- 2.2 Sexy difference: from product to advertising
- 2.2.1 Exploring the product
- 2.2.2 Sunglasses are becoming sexy
- 2.2.3 Exploiting the sexist gaze
- 2.2.4 Enacting feminism and freedom
- 2.3 Architectures of the corporate brand
- 2.3.1 From Californian rock dreams to brand management
- 2.3.2 Style and identity politics
- 2.3.3 Up with sales! Spatial, organizational and identity expansions
- 2.3.4 Conventions and affective bonds
- 2.4 The search for econo-sexy professionals: diversity management
- 2.4.1 "We don't simply like- we give it a value"
- 2.4.2 Diversity, a somewhat different equality
- 2.4.3 Inclusion as normalization?
- 3. Longing to be different
- 3.1 Identification as government
- 3.2 Life-work-worlds
- 3.2.1 The first employment
- 3.2.2 Service and shopping workers
- 3.2.3 The artistic improvisers
- 3.3 "Here I can be who I am", or: authenticity as freedom
- 3.3.1 The freedom of style
- 3.3.2 The necessity of style
- 3.3.3 The malleability of "ser diferente"
- 3.3.4 Style as a becoming
- 3.4 Recognizing and modeling different selves
- 3.4.1 Posing in contested differences
- 3.4.2 Sexy white girl
- 3.4.3 Black beauty and identity
- 3.4.4 The gay theme
- 4. Affective labor
- 4.1 Emotional work, authenticity, and affects
- 4.1.1 Double productivity: sexual labor
- 4.1.2 Exuberant sexuality, or, back to affect
- 4.2 The seductions of retail service work
- 4.2.1 "Trabalhar com acessórios é ser apaixonado pela marca"
- 4.2.2 Training, individuality, and attitude
- 4.2.3 Desires and sticky social bonds
- 4.2.4 Compliments and sexual fantasies
- 4.2.5 Misadventurous affects
- 4.3 Ambiguous friendships
- 4.3.1 Cordiality, a cultural politics of friendship
- 4.3.2 Deprovincializing cordiality
- 4.3.3 Recognition at work
- 4.3.4 Competitive affects and collectivity
- 5. (Un)fulfilled promises and different conflicts
- 5.1 Conditions, submissions and micro revolts in service work
- 5.1.1 Capital-competencies and personal growth, a phenomenon across classes?
- 5.1.2 Incorporating individual performance and beauty
- 5.1.3 Limited freedom, new controls: Pedro's emphatic criticism
- 5.1.4 Carol's unbroken passion
- 5.1.5 Keeping a safe distance: Juliano
- 5.2 Precarious recognition in motion
- 5.2.1 The fatigue of self-inventions
- 5.2.2 Rolezinhos and celebrating capitalism - "um tapa na cara da sociedade"
- 6. Conclusion
- 7. Bibliography
