Tracing the consent, adaptation and resistance practices of an ‘unsustainable’ workforce: The governmentality of workplaces in tourism industry

Abstract

This study takes a Foucauldian approach to neoliberal governmentality to analyze the multi-layered power relations at the tourism workplaces and the practices of subjection of employees to the industry's working conditions. It focuses on the neglected question of how tourism employees can continue working despite problems with their working conditions. Field research was conducted through semi-structured interviews with tourism workers in Alanya, one of Turkey's most important tourism cities, to reveal traces of employees' consent-adaptation-resistance practices in their everyday lives. The findings show that individuals are subjects in a multilayered power relationship. This subjection frames adaptation and resistance practices and reproduces unsustainable conditions within tourism workplaces. The findings offer critical insights into working conditions in the neoliberalized tourism workplaces dominated by Kafkaesque bureaucracy. The study encourages a new perspective highlighting the necessity of further criticism to promote decent work. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd