Amsterdam as a global city: Restructuring, identity rearticulation, and resistance in the service sector

Abstract

This article explores the interconnections between political-economic transformations of Amsterdam into a second-tier global city and the rearticulation of (gender) identities and resistance practices in the service sector. The research focuses on both the high and low ends of the service sector, i.e., banking and cleaning. Given different positionalities of employees in respective sectors, the article shows that their responses to changes in their work environment take on different modalities. Women managers in the banking sector resort to a strategy of "hiding" their gender identity and individualized responses, while Moroccan (male) cleaners tend to underscore the masculine nature of their work and are joining labor unions in greater numbers than before. © 2006 by The Policy Studies Organization. All rights reserved.