In Masters of Craft: Old Jobs in the New Urban Economy, Richard E. Ocejo explores four traditionally working-class jobs – barbering, bartending, distilling and butchery – that have been increasingly redefined as hip, high-status and ‘middle-class’ for a number of urban workers today. Though the backdrop of gentrification, deindustrialisation and class hierarchy are not examined in depth, Padraic X. Scanlan finds this a careful, focused ethnographic study that succeeds in conveying the rituals and norms of these new-old workplaces and the transformation of contemporary urban labour.
Book Review: Masters of Craft: Old Jobs in the New Urban Economy by Richard E. Ocejo