The Managed Hand - 9780520262607

Two women virtual strangers, sit hand-in-hand across a narrow table both in tention the same thing-achieving the perfect manicure Encounters like this occur thousands of times each day across the United States in nail salons over whelmingly owned and operated by Asian immigrants, This study looks closely at these intimate encounters focusing on New York City where such nail salons have become ubiquitous Countering notions of beauty service establishments as spaces for building community among women, the Managed Hand finds that while tentative and fragile solidarities can emerge across the manicure table they generally give way to even more powerful division of race class, and immigrant status.

This book is a must read for women's Studies and sociology classes on labor migration and gender it provides a rich and theoreticatly engaging discussion of feminine culture and of the interestions of race class, gender and imgrant women's labor" Rhacel Salazar Parrenas, Brown University

"Based on field work in nail salons, The Managed Hand reveals the social and emotional negotietions between and amongst women in that setting We will never look at finger nails and what they tell us about ourselves in the same way again" Rebecca King O'Riain, author of Pure Beauty: Judging Race in Japanese American Beauty Pageants

"I enjoyed reading Kang's work so much that felt disappointed when i finished This book is a wonderful example of what sociology does best, the analysis speaks not only to matters of individual experience and identity, but also to those of broader social and cultural processes and structures." Debra L. Gimlin, author of Body Work Beauty and Self-image in American Culture