Aesthetic labour in interactive service work: Some case study evidence from the 'new' Glasgow

This article is concerned with an important but so far under-appreciated and unexplored form of labour in interactive service work. This feature is termed by us as 'aesthetic labour'. We define such labour as a supply of embodied capacities and attributes possessed by workers at the poind of entry into employment. Employers then mobilise, develop and commodify these capacities and attributes through the processes of recruitment, selection and training, transforming them into competencies and skills which are then aesthetically geared to producing a 'style' of service encounter: The 'new' Glasgow, it is argued, is an exemplar of such stylish service work and employment, and empirical evidence is drawn from the 'new' Glasgow economy to illustrate the use of aesthetic labour in such areas as hospitality and retail.