2011-2016

Projektets syfte samt eventuella ändringar i syftet under projektperioden

The aim of the project was to explore the phenomena of tipping in Sweden. This has been done though participatory observations, in depths interviews, media and archive material. While there has not been a shift in the aim of the project, the empirical material collected in the beginning of the project, turned the attention to the topics of emotions placed on the money itself and the money as a mediator of emotional value, and specific feelings. The emotional regime regulating these interactions was included as another relevant aim of the project.

Another change, not so much in the aim of the project but in the selection and conceptualization of the empirical material was also to incorporate labour unions 'archive material; as it become clear that tipping has been a central arena of conflict between unions and employees until the fifties.

Projektets tre viktigaste resultat och ett resonemang om dessa
The project has generated original knowledge and several results. I will here present and argue for, those that I consider most relevant.

1. Ambivalence and emotions (or money with feelings)
The first central contribution of the research project is the identification of the ambivalence surrounding tipping, an ambivalence that is a result in the lack of a societal consensus, or of an unified moral economy on tipping at this present time. The empirical material grasps many (conflicting) feelings attached to the practice. While tipping has often been understood (and studied) as an economical transaction my research shows that, particularly in a Swedish context, tipping is a mediator of feelings from customers to workers. It can be a mediator of pleasure or dislike and disapproval (when tipping is not provided). A central tension that my material shows is that while customers stress tipping as an individual reward (and as their entitlement to defined the quality of the service), employees stress the collective aspect of service production, often challenging the individualization that tipping is embedded into.

2. Resisting individualization - weapons of the weak / weapons of service workers.
Forms of resistance are limited by the material reality in which the workers find themselves in (need of work, need of the extra money that tips can provide). Under these circumstances, workers find strategies of resistance that do not openly challenge the authority of consumers but question it beyond their gaze. There is a struggle over the moral economy of tipping, the meaning it should be given, what it reflects and who is entitled to it.

Employees found different strategies in managing the processes of individualisation embedded into tipping. I have, inspired in James C Scott Weapons of the Weak, identified these strategies as weapons of the poor as they are strategies developed in a context of precarious employment and for many a financial need for tip for household survival. These forms of resistance take place beyond the gaze of the customers. One strategy is the pooling of the tip, an act of collective solidarity, sharing of risk, resistance to the emphases on service as individual work. The pooling of tip creates new lines of distribution of resources in the work place negotiated by the employers themselves.

Another forms of resistance that was highly present in all interviews were stories where employees confront, often loudly and courageous costumers that have treat them badly. While these stories were told again and again, confrontational forms of resistance where nearly in-existent during my fieldwork. However they played an important role in creating horizons of hope, that resistance was legit and other forms of service encounters where possible.

3 The body as relation of ruling and site of resistance

My empirical material, confirms gender scholarship on service work grasping a high degree of sexual harassment, often linked to tipping. While employees did not in their narratives connect tipping to harassment, the majority had stories where sexual harassment was linked to tipping situations. Through the concept of relations of ruling, I show the centrality of the experience of the body for how customers treated employees. The body becomes both a site (surface) for othering, as well as of resistance; processes of gendered racialization are vital in both how customers treat service employees with different ethnic backgrounds and in the ways in which employees themselves reflect about their own experience of tipping.
In the Swedish context, scholarship on service while exploring the connection between gender, power and service employment has often untheorised the centrality of the category of race/ethnicity as a central classification system locating different groups of workers in relation to tipping.

Nya forskningsfrågor som har genererats genom projektet

The project has generated a wide range of new questions,
One relevant research questions is what forms of gratitude that is percent (and legit) in today working life. Feminist service research has often explored the different ways in which tipping creates precarity. And even though my material in many ways support this research, many of my informants provide other interpretations, stressing tipping as a form of gratitude from customers, and as a way to make visible and recognize, employees working efforts. How is gratitude and recognition expressed in working life, in other areas than service work, and what forms of gratitude and recognition are defined as legitimate. While much working life research focus in issues of distribution the project raises the question of what forms of recognition that are possible in a highly regulated labour market.

A second question is the role of money as a materiality; or rather the visibility of money. Money in itself became an important dimension of the project, not as a medium of exchange but a mediator of affect. What is the meaning given to money (visible and invisible), and how is it understood? The concept of moral economy can be used to explore the meaning embed into money (who is entitle to have it, when can it be visible, what does the visibility/invisibility of money mean), this is a research question I would like to explored further.

Projektets internationella förankring

The research project has been presented at four international conferences (peer reviewed paper). It has been also the focus on a stream I coordinated in another international conference. I have bee invited as keynote speaker for two international conferences; one organized by the Nordic labour unions, on the issues of sexual harassment and a workshop Superdiversity and Intersectionality organized at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. I have lectured at two international PhD Course on topics related to the project. Finally I have established a productive collaboration with Professor Linda McDowell (St John's College, Oxford) that has visited Malmö and with Prof. Florencia Parteno (Buenos Aires University UBA) working in similar issues in a Latin American context.

Forskningsinformativa insatser utanför vetenskapssamhället

There has been a great deal of public interested for the project. I have participated in two public research events organised by the university, (Forskar Gran Prix; http://forskargrandprix.se/search/malm%C3%B6) Akademisk kvart (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JO0lkdGPEck), I have also been interviewed by several newspapers (Göteborgsposten, Sydsvenskadagbladet , Helsinborgs Dagbladet, HotellRevyn, ETC, Metro; City), and been in the radio (Radio Malmö Hus, P3 podd on Hypotek, forth coming P3 Morgonpasset). I have participated in several events organised by civil society organisations focusing on working conditions and inequalities in the labour market.

Projektets två viktigaste publikationer samt ett resonemang om dessa

The two most important publications are the forthcoming, "Racism as intimacy - looking, questioning and touching in the service encounter" in Gender, Work and Place, and
"Weapons of the poor--tipping and resistance in precarious times", in Economic and Industrial Democracy.
The fist one "Weapons of the Poor" discusses the tension between customers understanding of tipping as a individual reward that they themselves are entitled to evaluate and employees emphases on tipping as a collective reward. The article shows that while both customers and employees share a positive understanding of tipping, a practice they most all the time they enjoy, their worldviews differ radically in how they conceptualize the content, the meaning and the form of tipping.
Using the concept of moral and affective economy, the article explores the use of the tip as a mediator of costumer's feelings towards specific service workers and how workers respond and act upon this processes of individualization. The article shows how workers use the practice of pooling tips to reduce the economic risk of tipping and the processes of individualisation within which it is embedded. The article shows also that the concept of moral and affective economy can be used productively to grasp the meanings given to economic relations grasping norms and values through which they are embedded.
The second article named Racism as intimacy - looking, questioning and touching in the service encounter explore how tipping affect processes of racialization within service work with a special focus on what workers experience as central bodily strategies used by customers and managers in othering processes. The article identifies three practices that workers experience at core of processes of 'othering': looks, questions and touches. All these practices displace and fix the workers' bodies as 'the other'.
The article is importance for it shows the need to explore service encounter from an intersectional perspective, and not only from a gender perspective that has often been the case. Further it explores how tipping affect the labour processes of workers.

Projektets publiceringsstrategi samt kommenatrer till denna.
Publishing strategies have been quite successful. I have tried to maintain a balance between international and Swedish publications, collaborating in both international journals (two articles, one published and the other submitted) as well as in Swedish anthologies. I planned to submit two more article during 2016 exploring the role of money particularly the tensions between visible and invisible forms of monetary exchange
All conference papers presented at international conferences are regulated through open access. The articles will be freely available online to non subscribers though payment.

Publications

Publikationslista, samt länkar till egna webbsidor

Mulinari, P (2016) “Weapons of the poor—tipping and resistance in precarious times”, in Economic and Industrial Democracy. Forth coming.

Mulinari, P (2016) “Racism as intimacy – looking, questioning and touching in the service encounter” in Gender, Work and . (Submitted)

Mulinari, P (2016) Arbetsplatsmotståndets många ansikten –  En blogg, ett skratt och en strejk. Red, Sandberg, Åke  ’Nordiskt ljus’ (prel utgivning 2017 förlag.)

Muliari, P (2015) ”Blickar, frågor och beröring— rasism som ett arbetsmiljöproblem”, in Sprickor, öppningar & krackeleringar : Nya perspektiv på arbetsmiljö. Eds Sjöstedt Landén, Angelica; Olofsdotter, Gunilla; Bolin, Malin. Gender Studies at Mid Sweden University,

Mulinari, P (2014) ”Kan du leva på din lön? Om dricks, känsliga pengar och ekonomisk utsatthet”,in Perspektiv på social utsatthet, Lalander, P. & B. Svensson Studentlitteratur. Lund.

Mulinari, P (2013) ”Känslor och moral i arbetslivet”, Genusvetenskap, politik och
Samhällsengagemang (red) Lundberg, A, & A. Werner, Genusekretariatet. Göteborg.


Fackgranskade konferensbidrag (Peer-reviewed conference contributions)
“Racism as intimacy - Looking, questioning and touching in the service encounter” at Working Revolutions, Revolutionising work. International Labour Processes Conferance. Strathclyde Business School, Berlin, April 4 – 6 april, 2016.

”Emotions and morals in tipping transaction. Trying a theoretical approach”, at States of Work: Visions and Interpretations of Work, Employment, Society and the State. Work, Employment and Society Conference. University of Warwick, UK, Septermber 3 – 5, 2013.

”The moral economy of tipping: Emotional and body work in tipping transactions”, at Work Matters. ILPC 2012 . Stockholm, Sweden.

Streams accepted

”Intersectional perspectives on Nordic Working Life”, at Threats and Possibilities Facing Nordic Working Life. The 7th Nordic Working Life Conference, Göteborg University, Sweden, June 11-13, 2014.

”Within and beyond emotional work New directions in studies of gender, emotions
 and bodies in working life research” at Hard Times? The 8th Nordic Working Life Conference 2016, University of Tampere, Finland Novemberg 14-16, 2016.


Keynot speaker
Nordic conference on sexism and sexual harassment in the hotel. And restaurant and tourism industry.  (http://www.nikk.no/en/news/sexual-harassments-widespread-in-the-nordic-countries/)

Seminar on Superdiversity and Intersectionality (https://www.jyu.fi/en/news/archive/2015/09/tapahtuma-2015-09-03-16-43-56-839360

Populärvetenskapliga artiklar/presentationer (Popular science
articles/presentations)

Mulinari, P (2016) ”Mynten på bordet” Bang 1/2016 | TEMA EKONOMI
Mulinari,  (2012)”Dricks ställer frågor om makt, ekonomi och känslor” Sydsvenskan 2012-15-09

Interviews

http://www.sydsvenskan.se/sverige/vanligare-att-diskutera-dricks/
http://www.sydsvenskan.se/opinion/aktuella-fragor/dricks-staller-fragor-om-makt-ekonomi-och-kanslor/
http://www.hd.se/nyheter/ekonomi/2015/02/09/dricksen-vacker-manga-kanslor/
http://www.etc.se/inrikes/dricksens-comeback
http://www.hotellrevyn.se/branschanstallda-verkar-ge-mer-dricks#.VxKt2j9uK1s
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=96&artikel=6047229
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=96&artikel=6260191
http://nwt.se/varmland/2015/02/13/ska-man-betala-dricks-eller-inte
Akademisk kvart (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JO0lkdGPEck),