Realizing dignity in housekeeping work: Evidence of five star hotels

Abstract

This article illuminates the difficulties of achieving dignity at work for hotel room attendants working at 5-star hotels in the Gold Coast region of South East Queensland, Australia. This exploratory research was founded on socialist-feminist epistemologies. In-depth interviews were conducted with a sample of 46 hotel room attendants. A qualitative, social-constructivist, grounded-theory methodology was used to render the empirical material into a basic social structural process of achievement of dignity. Despite exploitation, marginalization and oppression imbued in their working conditions, hotel room attendants achieve dignity through personal inclinations, dispositions, capabilities and affective domain qualities. This research has implications for hospitality industry practice.