Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Stellenbosch University, Private Bag X1, 7602, Matieland, South Africa
Crous, M.E., Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Stellenbosch University, Private Bag X1, 7602, Matieland, South Africa
This article explores the social relations between restaurant staff in a busy Stellenbosch restaurant. Following Judith Butler's theoretical understanding of gender as a performative displacement onto bodies, I will methodologically show how the everyday practice of work in a restaurant is an example of a series of gendering performances producing gendered subjects. I analyse visible and invisible authorities that regulate subjects' performances, and reward and punish them accordingly. These authorities regulate speech acts and 'techniques of the body', which I suggest are performances of restaurant labour that produce gender. Everyday practice in a restaurant, such as tipping, shows the performative nature of gendered subjects, the multiple authorities that regulate their roles, and the limits of their agency. © South African Sociological Association.
