Informality wears uniform: The experience of beauty salons' workers in santiago, Chile

This article examines how flexible work economy have been affecting a group of workers in Santiago-Chile that I will call independent/dependent workers. My focus is on a group of beauty salons’ employees who do not have a work contract and receive their payment as if they were giving an independent service but depend on the rules their boss imposes them. While informal workers represent an important part of the labour force in Santiago-Chile, the kind of work described in the article appears to be a new arrangement within the context of urban informality that contains elements of what has been named new capitalism (Sennett 2006). The exact manner in which these employees have been coping with their way of work, together with the present and future implications of it regarding social security and uncertainty is the core of this article.   Drawing on ethnographic observation in three beauty salons, we will see how the belief of being an independent worker, embodied by the employees, helps to enact many skills required by the flexible work economy such as  personal commitment and ambition, entrepreneurial adaptability and work discipline. Also, by delving in the everyday life experience of the informants, we will explore the ways in which the terms informal, precarious and flexible work do limit and converge.