Discreet Economy: Luxury Hospitality in the Context of Postsocialist Transformation of Czech Society

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Iveta Hajdáková
Institute of Postgraduate Study Programmes, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague

Abstract

In the Czech Republic, popular discourse on service workers is characterized by complaints about poor level of Czech hospitality resulting from the country’s socialist history. On the other hand, there are luxury restaurants that are considered a mark of individual success of their owners as well as of economic transformation and prosperity. This paper looks at a case study of one luxury restaurant in Prague and shows how hospitality, luxury, and inequalities between workers and customers were negotiated and contested by workers. The concept of discreet economy is introduced to analyze exchanges between agents, inequalities between them, and workers’ strategies of resistance. Readers are invited to see luxury hospitality as an arena where postsocialist transformation of the society is negotiated. In English, extended summary in Russian.

Keywords

Postsocialism, Czech Republic, Hospitality, Luxury, Service Work, Restaurant, Economy, Morality


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Published
Apr 23, 2013

Article Details

How to Cite
Hajdáková, I. (2013). Discreet Economy: Luxury Hospitality in the Context of Postsocialist Transformation of Czech Society. Laboratorium: Russian Review of Social Research, 5(1), 73–97. Retrieved from https://soclabo.org/index.php/laboratorium/article/view/64
Issue
Vol. 5 No. 1 (2013): The Social Lives of Postsocialism
Section
Articles
Author Biography

Iveta Hajdáková, Institute of Postgraduate Study Programmes, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague

Iveta Hajdáková is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague. Her research is focused on luxury hospitality and gastronomy in the Czech Republic, service work, consumption of luxury services, and postsocialist transformation of hospitality and gastronomy. She was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Columbia University in New York in 2012/2013.

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