Hospitality workers and the spaces of the habitual: a discussion on agency and practice

Kristina Zampoukos

Chapter 25 in Handbook of Labour Geography, 2025, pp 421-432 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Whilst much of labour geographers’ conceptualisation of agency assumes a causal link between intentionality, observable acts, and concrete outcomes, theorists of practice are less concerned with determining causal links between intention-act-outcome and instead direct their attention to the habitual as such. My aim with this chapter is to examine how ‘agency’, inspired by a Marxist/Realist approach, and ‘practice’, founded on post-structuralist thinking, may combine to open up new understandings of workers’ behaviour in a geographical context. For this task, I draw upon the work of scholars such as Bourdieu (1977 [2013]) and Thrift (2008), together with interview data from a study on how workers counteract/avoid/cope with sexual harassment in the hospitality workplace. I conclude by making a few suggestions as to what a shift in focus from the theorisation of agency to thinking more profoundly about practice might signify to the trajectory of Labour Geography.

Keywords: Hospitality; Workers; Agency; Practice; Space; Time (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781785363399
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