Drinking as affective labour: a discussion of Australian men working in hospitality and corporate workplaces

In the public imaginary, drinking is often thought of as a behaviour separate from individuals’ formal labour practices, but studies increasingly highlight the complex ways alcohol is entwined with work. Building on recent conceptual developments in the sociological fields of youth, health and work, we illustrate how drinking can be productively understood as ‘affective labour’, and thus itself a form of work that generates valuable embodied states and atmospheres. To do so, we draw on data from six focus groups with men coworkers from three hospitality workplaces and three corporate workplaces in Victoria. For the corporate groups, work-related drinking was tied to an unravelling of certain professional affects and facilitated harmonious and productive workplace relationships, but also introduced risks ranging from embarrassment to sexual harassment. For hospitality workers, drinking was more deeply enmeshed in workplace relationships and, for one group, drinking on-shift was positively framed as creating an affect and atmosphere that appealed to clientele, despite taking a toll on workers’ wellbeing. In both settings not drinking risked limiting one’s ability to get on colleagues’ affective ‘level’. Our data deepens current understandings of how drinking cultures may be woven through occupational settings, produce value for organisations and introduce unique potential for exclusion.