On the Materiality of Service Work

Abstract

This article argues that retail service work is characterised by engagement with material products. Retail sales assistants work to create the shop as a site of consumption, and to create the products for sale as desirable objects for consumption. This is more important than the customer service interactions that are often seen as characterising service work. In making the argument for the centrality of the material in retail work, the article takes issue with conceptions of the service sector that emphasise its difference from other economic sectors, and with research into service work that focuses on interaction to the exclusion of other elements of the labour process. It calls for a more nuanced, contextualised understanding of the service sector that acknowledges the difference between sub-sectors.