Emotions, Bodies, and Identities in the Hair and Beauty Salon

Caring Beyond Skin Deep

Inbunden, Engelska, 2026

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Hair and beauty salons are a common feature of daily life, with salons seemingly on every street corner. What are we to make of this demand? Drawing on ethnographic and other methods, Emotions, Bodies, and Identities in the Hair and Beauty Salon suggests that salons are about more than just simply maintaining appearances. This book argues that salons are about care work, which involves responding to emotions through talk, managing bodies through touch, and curating identities through aesthetics. While feminists have long identified the impositions of ideals pushed by the beauty industry, there has been less attention to generative aspects of beauty culture. This book tries to put the care involved in salon work on the radar, examining how workers manage talk and their therapeutic-like roles, touch and physical intimacy, and identities via the curation of surfaces in the salon. In a context where visits to salons are often described by clients as “self-care”, this book is a reminder that someone else is often doing the work. This book highlights how salon workers provide clients with care that is often profoundly meaningful in terms of responding to emotions, bodies, and identities, and that this is indeed labour that ought to be valued and supported accordingly.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2026-01-08
Mått146 x 230 x 20 mm
Vikt540 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor272
FörlagBloomsbury Publishing Plc
ISBN9781666945836

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Genusvetenskap inom Samhälle och politik
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List of Figures and TablesAcknowledgments Introduction – Why Care Beyond Skin Deep?1. Chapter One – Theory: The Impasse in Debating Beauty2. Chapter Two – Real Life: Trying to Put Care on the Radar3. Chapter Three – Representation: The Fictional Salon4. Chapter Four – Emotions: Talk, Therapy, and Friendship in the Salon5. Chapter Five – Bodies: Managing Touch and Physical Intimacy in the Salon6. Chapter Six – Identities: Aesthetic Desires and Curating Surfaces in the Salon7. Chapter Seven – Money: The Business of Salons Versus Authentic CareConclusion – Caring in a Time of CrisisBibliography

"Anybody who has researched in or simply been to hair and beauty salons knows that care is an unmissable aspect. And yet, care in hair and beauty work lacks adequate acknowledgement and theorization. In this book, Hannah McCann shows how beauty work is a profession unlike any other when it comes to the kind of care that must be provided -- care for emotions via talk, care for bodies via touch, and care for identities via aesthetic management. At the same time, Hannah's study does not romanticize salon workers but gives the reader a glimpse into the conditions under which they must provide this care. She carefully reviews the prejudices feminists have against all things beauty to show the sociological insights that can be gained by treating salons as places worthy of academic investigation. Her use of queer theory brings in a new lens to look at what hair and beauty salons can mean to their users. This book is a timely and insightful piece of scholarship."