what can I do for the earth|?

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) , Phil Taylor (University of Stirling)