??Manicuring Intimacy: Feminised labour, (self-)care, and racialised encounters in nail salons?

Description of the granted funding

This project examines an understudied field of nail salons in Europe, an employment sector that is run by migrant women. The global nail salon industry has grown rapidly in recent years, fuelled by increasing consumer demand for self-care and the expansion of the service sector. This market is mainly composed of small businesses owned and staffed by migrant women, primarily from Eastern Europe (e.g. Ukraine, Belarus, Russia) and Southeast Asia (e.g. Thailand and Vietnam). The project combines participant observations and interviews with workers and customers of nail salons in Helsinki and Warsaw, with video, text, and still images to analyse intimate relations that are being made and unmade among women through touch, beauty and (self-)care. The project's findings will inform policy and civil society responses to the inequalities faced by migrant women and the conditions of work in one of the poorly regulated sectors of labour.
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Starting year

2025

End year

2029

Granted funding

Daria Krivonos Orcid -palvelun logo
756 612 €

Funder

Research Council of Finland

Funding instrument

Academy research fellows

Decision maker

Scientific Council for Social Sciences and Humanities
17.06.2025

Other information

Funding decision number

371004

Fields of science

Other social sciences

Research fields

Nais- ja sukupuolentutkimus