This book investigates the interface of ethnicity with occupation, empirically observed in luxury international hotels in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It employs the two main disciplines of anthropology and sociology in order to understand the root causes and meaning of ethnicity at work within the hospitality industry sector. More specifically, it observes social change in a multi-ethnic and non-secular society through an ethnographic study located in a micro organisation: the Grand Hotel. At the individual level, this research shows how identity shifts and transformation can be mediated through the consumption and manipulation of food at the workplace. In addition, it combines an ambitious theoretical discussion on the concept of ethnicity together with empirical data that highlights how ethnicity is lived on an everyday basis at a workplace manifesting the dynamics of cultural, religious and ethnic diversity. The book presents the quantitative and qualitative findings of two complementary surveys and pursues an interdisciplinary approach, as it integrates methodologies from the sociology of organisations with classic fieldwork methods borrowed from ethnology, while combining French and Anglo-Saxon schools of thoughts on questions of identity and ethnicity. The results of the cultural contact occurring in a westernised pocket of the global labour market in which social practices derive from the headquarters located in a society where ethnicity is self-ascribed with Malaysian social actors to whom ethnicity is assigned will be of particular interest for social scientists and general readers alike.

Provides empirical data on a sector that is rarely researched: the luxury hotel industry Challenges the mainstream theoretical framing of ethnicity Employs a unique perspective that combines the best of French and Anglo-Saxon world-views An original investigation of food as a medium for identity (trans)formation Well rooted in the social sciences, while also providing practical managerial applications

Autorentext

Eric Olmedo is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Ethnic Studies (KITA), the National University of Malaysia. His academic interest lies at the crossroads of the fields of sociology of work and anthropology of food, with a focus on ethnic relations. Besides conducting research projects, Eric Olmedo provides consultancy services in the manufacturing and services industries, focussing on productivity optimisation through in-depth analysis of organisational systems as well as workers' perspectives and engagement. The first part of his career was dedicated to the hospitality industry where he occupied various operational and training positions in France and Canada. Prior to joining Academia, his last position in the hotel trade was as Resident Manager in a 5 star château-hotel near Paris, France. After a few years spent teaching as a National Accredited lecturer, he became head of Hospitality Studies in a polytechnic school near Paris. It was then that he was sent toChile by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs to open hotel schools and design curricula. Subsequent to his experience in Latin America and other missions in the Middle East, Africa, Northern and Southeast Asia, Eric Olmedo moved to Malaysia and took the position of Director of Studies in a private university between 2002 and 2006, near Kuala Lumpur. Until June 2013, he was Deputy-director of the School of Hospitality, Tourism Management, and Food Studies at the University of Toulouse, France. Hotel-school trained, he holds 2 Master Degrees: in Sociology of Organisations and in Hospitality and Tourism Management and a PhD in Sociology. He is a certified Wine Trainer and Assessor.

Inhalt
Acknowledgements.- List of Figures.- List of Plates.- Chapter 1: Introduction: The Hotel as Social Laboratory.- Chapter 2: Self-Ethnography, or How my story affects the story.- Chapter 3: Ethnicity, Identity & Society.- Chapter 4: Food and Society: The Life of Ethnic Boundaries.- Chapter 5: The Hotel as Micro-Ecumene.- Chapter 6: The Hotel as Workplace: Technology Transfer & Identity Formation.- Chapter 7: Towards an Epistemological Spatial Turn.- Chapter 8: Conclusion.- References.