Identity regulation and aesthetic control: The affordances and restraints of uniforms in service work

Abstract

This article contributes to the literatures on work identity regulation and aesthetic labor by discussing how organizational aesthetic guidelines and control have effects that go beyond appearances. Two contrasting case studies of uniforms within the service sector illustrate that – due to the (material) affordances and restraints of uniforms, their agency within client–worker interactions, and to their capacity to redefine workers’ perceptions of their interests – uniforms have the potential to regulate work identities and to mediate harassment and aggression at work. In line with performative and processual views on identity, the empirical material indicates that what uniforms do is not simply imposed by employers in a top–down manner. Rather, how uniforms shape work identities is situational, contingent, and dependent on other human and non-human actors within interactions. Employee aesthetics are thus not only an objective, but also a means of organizational control.