In this ethnographic study social anthropologist Katoo Miszewski investigates how long-haul flight attendants manage the disconnect between their working realities and their airline’s expectations.
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Katoo Miszewski
The work of flight attendants is deeply complex and it has to be taken into account when redesigning the long-haul flight.This research was conducted under my supervision on behalf of Mirabeau, a Cognizant Digital Business. With a team of young talented master and PhD students in the human sciences, we have conducted foundational research into consumer behavior in the focus industries of Finance and Travel, and into the role that new technologies play in people's daily lives. Great research is the precondition for great design. Ultimately the issue is that there is a disconnect between the expectations of the airline and the reality of the flight attendant.
This presents itself as a set of paradoxes which are: standardized structures that are set against flexibility, an expectation for flight attendants to look healthy when their work systematically does not allow for that and finally flight attendants are supposed to be sociable yet they are alienated from one another. Within each of these cases, the flight attendant “tinkers” to try and meet the airlines expectations.
Flight attendants make micro-adjustments or tinker to meet the airline’s demands.
This paper examines the work of long-haul, economy class flight attendants at a European Airline and shows how there is a disconnect between the expectations of the airline and the reality of a flight attendants work. It goes on to examine how flight attendants manage this disconnect. Each of the three chapters shows different variations of this disconnect and how it manifests as paradoxes. The first chapter looks at how the temporal structures that govern the work of flight attendants are simultaneously highly standardized while at the same time demanding an enormous amount of flexibility from the flight attendants. The second chapter shows how the structures from the previous chapter are responsible for “breaking” the body of the flight attendant and then recreating it to perform in the way that the airline considers appropriate. I go on to explain how flight attendants are expected to present as being “healthy”.
What results is what I refer to as a kind of bodily dissonance. However, the impact on the body is not consistent so flight attendants have to tinker with their self-care to look “healthy” enough for the airline. The final chapter shows how flight attendants are systematically alienated from one another while the airline expects them to be sociable. In each section I show how flight attendants tinker their reality to meet the airline’s expectation. To do this research I conducted in depth interviews, online participant observation, textual news analysis and policy analysis. As this is an applied anthropology project, I have partnered with Mirabeau, a digital design agency, to whom I will give recommendations about possible software solutions that could aid the work of flight attendants.
This article is an abstract of the research report. Interested in reading the full report? Please contact me, info@henkhaaima.com.
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In this ethnographic study social anthropologist Katoo Miszewski investigates how long-haul flight attendants manage the disconnect between their working realities and their airline’s expectations.
Author: Katoo Miszewski
T
The work of flight attendants is deeply complex and it has to be taken into account when redesigning the long-haul flight. Ultimately the issue is that there is a disconnect between the expectations of the airline and the reality of the flight attendant.
This presents itself as a set of paradoxes which are: standardized structures that are set against flexibility, an expectation for flight attendants to look healthy when their work systematically does not allow for that and finally flight attendants are supposed to be sociable yet they are alienated from one another. Within each of these cases, the flight attendant “tinkers” to try and meet the airlines expectations.
Flight attendants make micro-adjustments or tinker to meet the airline’s demands.
This paper examines the work of long-haul, economy class flight attendants at a European Airline and shows how there is a disconnect between the expectations of the airline and the reality of a flight attendants work. It goes on to examine how flight attendants manage this disconnect. Each of the three chapters shows different variations of this disconnect and how it manifests as paradoxes. The first chapter looks at how the temporal structures that govern the work of flight attendants are simultaneously highly standardized while at the same time demanding an enormous amount of flexibility from the flight attendants. The second chapter shows how the structures from the previous chapter are responsible for “breaking” the body of the flight attendant and then recreating it to perform in the way that the airline considers appropriate. I go on to explain how flight attendants are expected to present as being “healthy”.
What results is what I refer to as a kind of bodily dissonance. However, the impact on the body is not consistent so flight attendants have to tinker with their self-care to look “healthy” enough for the airline. The final chapter shows how flight attendants are systematically alienated from one another while the airline expects them to be sociable. In each section I show how flight attendants tinker their reality to meet the airline’s expectation. To do this research I conducted in depth interviews, online participant observation, textual news analysis and policy analysis. As this is an applied anthropology project, I have partnered with Mirabeau, a digital design agency, to whom I will give recommendations about possible software solutions that could aid the work of flight attendants.
This article is an abstract of the research report. Interested in reading the full report? Please contact me, info@henkhaaima.com.
Read other articles
Read other articles
