Practising workplace geographies: embodied labour as method in human geography

Abstract

Embodied experience, situated corporeal knowledge(s), and bodily mobility lie at the forefront of many research agendas within geography. However, the body has been largely ignored in workplace studies. That is, the context-specific, embodied daily practices of work remain overlooked within workplace geographies. In this paper, I reiterate a call made nearly two decades ago for more analyses of 'bodies at work' in geography, and I suggest a way of studying bodies at work that integrates the context-specific concerns of labour geographers with the theoretical interest on the body found elsewhere in geography: working participant observation. I claim working participant observation provides an opportunity to analyse how generic ideas about flexible labour are put into practice and creatively adapted by bodies in the workplace, especially in service industries. Through a description of working participant observation carried out in a handful of inns in Japan, I discuss how this method allows one to conduct research through the body and enables geographers to take seriously the spatiality and creativeness of embodied work practices. © 2012 The Author. Area © 2012 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers).