'He probably thought we were students': Age norms and the exercise of visual judgement in service work. Issue 2 (February 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Llewellyn, Nick
• Is Part Of: Organization studies. Volume 36:Issue 2(2015)
• Page Start: 153
• Page End: 173
• Publication Date: 2015-02
• Subjects: age -- identity -- interactive service work -- norms -- social interaction -- 'the visual' -- video studies; Organizational sociology -- Periodicals; Organizational behavior -- Periodicals; Organization -- Periodicals; 302.35
• DOI: 10.1177/0170840614546151
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0170-8406

Abstract

This paper analyses how organisational actors draw upon, perhaps without conscious acknowledgement, assumptions about age as they engage in organisational activities. Drawing on video-recordings of naturalistic interaction, the paper analyses how customers are positioned with respect to age-based norms, often following visual assessments of their physical appearance. Through detailed rhetorical and sequential analysis, the paper describes artful practices, through which participants make age-based norms relevant for the composition of ordinary organisational actions. The paper is amongst the first micro-sociological studies to analyse how people engage age-based norms in this way. It shows the positioning of age identities to be substantially an interactional phenomenon, as well as a discursive and reflexive one.