Cover; Table of Contents ; Acknowledgments ; 1. Introduction ; 1.1 Identity markets and their discontents ; 1.2 Culture, hegemony and (sexual) difference ; 1.3 Notes on method and research procedure ; 2. Governing through desires Brands, identities and the case of Visibly Hot
2.1 The brand as a mode of conduct 2.1.1 How commodities obtained a life of their own ; 2.1.2 Behavioral science and the shift to the consumer's needs ; 2.1.3 Media and the social fabric of the everyday ; 2.1.4 The role of lifestyles and political stances ; 2.1.5 The corporate brand
2.1.6 Branding and the body 2.2 Sexy difference: from product to advertising ; 2.2.1 Exploring the product ; 2.2.2 Sunglasses are becoming sexy ; 2.2.3 Exploiting the sexist gaze ; 2.2.4 Enacting feminism and freedom ; 2.3 Architectures of the corporate brand
2.3.1 From Californian rock dreams to brand management 2.3.2 Style and identity politics ; 2.3.3 Up with sales! Spatial, organizational and identity expansions ; 2.3.4 Conventions and affective bonds ; 2.4 The search for econo-sexy professionals: diversity management
2.4.1 "We don't simply like- we give it a value" 2.4.2 Diversity, a somewhat different equality ; 2.4.3 Inclusion as normalization? ; 3. Longing to be different ; 3.1 Identification as government ; 3.2 Life-work-worlds ; 3.2.1 The first employment ; 3.2.2 Service and shopping workers
3.2.3 The artistic improvisers
Summary
Nicolas Wasser critically examines how sexual and racial identities are currently being articulated through capitalist brands and labor. On the basis of an ethnographic case study about a Brazilian fashion enterprise, he shows how young - lesbian, gay and black - sales employees align themselves with the ambivalent promises put forward by diversity management. Their affective labor, the study argues, is at the center of new and globally unfolding regimes of the precarious. Readers will thus find a rich sociological account from the Global South on how neoliberal logics of self-optimization both traverse and fuel the aspirations of the minoritized
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-296)
