The post-structuralist focus on text and the production of text has recently produced
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is in the field, gathering data. The argument is explored with reference to a dual
ethnography of customer service work whereby the competing roles of worker and
customer are acknowledged and incorporated into the research design through period
spent observing as a worker and as a shopper. Researching customer service work as a
worker and as a shopper reflects how claims to representation are contingent on the
social role taken by the researcher. The implications of this for discussions of
insider and outsider status and reflexivity are considered.
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