Informality wears uniform: Beauty salons’ workers in Santiago, Chile

• Main Author: Rosario Palacios Ruiz de Gamboa
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, Sede México 2018-01-01
• Series: Perfiles Latinoamericanos
• Subjects: informalidad; flexibilidad laboral; disciplina; etnografía; salones de belleza; sociología del trabajo.
• Online Access: http://perfilesla.flacso.edu.mx/index.php/perfilesla/article/view/533

This article examines how flexible work economy has been affecting a group of beauty salons’ workers in Santiago, Chile. They do not have a work contract and receive their payment as if they were giving an independent service, but depend on the rules their bosses impose them. The kind of work described in the article appears to be a new arrangement within the context of urban informality, which has present and future implications regarding social security and uncertainty. Drawing on ethnographic observation in four beauty salons, I describe how the embodied belief of being an independent worker helps to enact many skills required by the flexible work economy.