Liminality at work in Norwegian hotels

Abstract

Hotels are spaces of temporary accommodation, but they are also important temporary spaces for an increasingly mobile and segmented workforce with different backgrounds and motives. In this paper we wish to address the temporary and transitional nature of hotel work by employing the term 'liminality'. More specifically, we analyse the hotel as a liminal space for transient workers that view this work as a temporary endeavour. By drawing upon data from a study of hotel workers in Norway, we discuss how the liminality of hotel work may be understood. Here, we turn to an important debate within tourism studies on the blurring relationships between consumer and producer identities in resorts, often referred to in terms such as 'working tourist' or 'migrant tourist-worker' (Bianchi, 2000). For a relatively privileged group of workers, the hotel becomes a space of liminal lifestyle pursuits as well as a space of work. We also contrast this privileged group with a different and less privileged liminal group of 'expatriate workers' (cf. Longva 1997). Bianchi (2000) highlights the potentially problematic effect of transient lifestyles and consumption of recreation, a problematic we wish to develop further by investigating how worker representation and solidarity develops in liminal spaces of work. While strategies of liminality may have a transformative impact on the individual, their aggregate effects might simultaneously alter the way in which hospitality work is negotiatedfrom the collective to the individual level. As such, hotels as employers of working tourists pose a great challenge to collective representation, and may undermine effective worker action for less privileged groups of workers. The final section of this paper addresses this challenge, asking what bearings the individualism that dominates liminal work spaces has for trade unionism in the hospitality industry.

To seek one's fortune: Labour migrants from the Western Balkans in Norwegian hospitality industry

“…And what more do I need?" Based on the above, we see the elements that were studied by Underthun and Jordhus-Lier (2017), confirming that by working in hotel kitchens the hotel becomes a place of work and life.…”

“…This has affected large population migrations (Janta et al, 2011;Joppe, 2012) from South-eastern Europe, primarily to Germany and other EU countries, followed by Norway and Canada (Commissariat for Refugees and Migration of the Republic of Serbia, 2016). In this case, hospitality workers can be considered as "working tourists" and as "migrant tourism workers" (Underthun, Jordhus-Lier, 2017). Allen and Mac Con Iomaire (2016) discuss the migration of hospitality workers, chefs and cooks, trying to find out why they are more numerous in restaurants than in hotels, which is not the norm everywhere (Kalenjuk et al, 2020).…”

Transience

“…Coupland 2003) compared to scholars from other fields, including sociology, anthropology and human geography. Although transience may not be a mainstream topic in social theory, it has in fact been identified and discussed as a salient feature of late modernity for at least 20 years, for instance in relation to transient workers in the tourism industry, from Hawaiʻi to Scandinavia (Adler and Adler 1999, Thulemark 2017, Underthun and Jordhus-Lier 2018, transient 'portable' communities that form around shared interests in bluegrass music in the American Midwest (Gardner 2004) transient or 'light' communities emerging in various modes of public transport from the Victorian railway (De Sapio 2013) to 'tram 12 in the city of Antwerp' (Soenen 2006, cf. Nash 1975, transnational students in Auckland (Collins 2012), and 'global nomads' living lives of 'location independence' (Kannisto 2016).…”

Change within the change: pregnancy, liminality and adventure tourism in Mexico

“…Finally, we present the study conclusions and recommendations for future research. The notion of liminality has been extensively theorised to make sense of change, mobility, transition, transit, in-between-ness and any state of hybridity or transformation (Borg & Söderlund, 2013;Ibarra & Obaduru, 2016;Turner, 1996Turner, , 1974Turner, , 1987Underthun & Jordhus-Lier, 2017;Van Gennep, 1960). Turner (1969Turner ( , 1974Turner ( , 1987 and Van Gennep (1960) focused on the in-between spaces and transitional moments when apparent distraction and ambiguity are experienced during rites of passage and transformations.…”