Bryan Boyle is a guest professor and PhD student at the Sociology Department of VUB, where he teaches classes on social inequality. He is particularly interested in the lives and labour of people working in personal service for wealthy individuals and families amid growing economic inequality, utilizing perspectives from both labour and cultural sociology. To explore this, he trained and worked as a butler, investigating the role they play in maintaining elite lifestyles. The main findings from this research and ethnography were recently published in an article (authored by Bryan and his promotor, Prof. Dieter Vandebroeck) in the American Sociological Review. Below you can read an interview conducted by Lobke Van Ryckeghem for the newsletter of the VUB Faculty of Social Sciences and Solvay Business School.
Quote: “For me, sociologists have a fundamental responsibility to hold those in power to account and reveal the mechanisms that produce inequalities. I think that butlers and the ‘labour of distinction’ concept, in effect, reveals a kind of crack in some of the ways in which elites wield power.”
Hi Bryan, can you introduce yourself and describe your research?
Hi, my name is Bryan Boyle and I’m a guest professor and PhD student. I’m based at the Sociology Department at the VUB where I teach classes on social inequality. For research, I’m especially interested in the life and labour of people who work in personal service for wealthy individuals and families at a time of growing economic inequality, utilizing perspectives from both labour and cultural sociology.
For my thesis, I have done ethnographic research on those who work as ‘butlers’, a profession that is experiencing a revival. For this, I trained and worked as a butler, asking what role they play in maintaining elites lifestyles. It is the main findings from this question and this ethnography that I recently published in the American Sociological Review.
Can you tell us a little bit more about your method? Why did you find it important to actually train and work as a butler?
This follows a very specific ethnographic tradition, one that is called ‘enactive ethnography’. The idea behind this is that in order to best understand a given social population, one must try to immerse oneself in that population and ‘enact’ the actions that they typically undertake. I used my own body to understand the important elements of their craft: how they must stand when serving, the importance of grooming and style, being able to recognize with one’s senses the difference between good and bad wine. Many of these aspects are hard to capture or understand using only interviews or traditional observation methods.
Importantly, I also found that this method was especially useful when doing research on butlers because much of their work is invisible. The butler will, for instance, often work around the edges of the people they serve, be discreet, and conduct most of their work ‘behind the scenes’. This is part of their job to not be seen, to not make a presence. So how do you research these people? Well, if there's one person the butler isn't invisible to, it's themselves. By working as a butler, you get to witness all aspects of their world.
But, in your paper, the analysis and arguments that you develop are not only about butlers, right?
That’s right. The paper is largely a theoretical paper where we coin a whole new concept. We call this the ‘Labour of Distinction’, which we define as ‘labour that produces and reproduces distinct lifestyles’. A useful way to understand this concept is by comparing it to the traditional economic view of labour appropriation. Simply put, we usually think of labour as producing tangible goods; a business owner hires a worker to create a product, which is then sold for more than the cost of production to generate profit. Our concept, however, highlights how labour can also be directed towards creating status or symbolic profit.
Take, for example, the way that butlers manage wine. If an employer is having a dinner party, very often they will leave the selection of the wine to the butler. The butler must ensure the wine is of high quality, correctly paired with each course, and that these combinations are well-judged. Additionally, the wine must be optimal, properly decanted, and given time to breathe. For the employer, the stakes can be very high. Serving wine correctly in elite circles can influence how peers judge you and whether they perceive you as having "good taste." This perception can have broader implications, such as impacting your ability to strike business deals or secure a place for your child in a prestigious school. Butlers strive to create this impression, showcasing how they generate status for elites. In the paper, we also discuss other examples, such as how butlers act as showpieces for their employers, with their bodies and skills serving as status symbols.
The reason for the coining the concept is that it enables us, as sociologists, to identify where this process might be present elsewhere. In the paper, we draw comparisons with what butlers do to other occupations that seem to be in the service to elites. We compare them to housekeepers that clean the rooms, stylists that construct wardrobes, even to hired celebrities that might perform at a billionaire’s wedding. We show that there is a whole labour force that can be appropriated by elites as they try to distinguish themselves, and our concept provides a framework to make sense of this labour force.
And what would you regard as the bigger message of your study? What is the wider relevance of the paper to society?
For me, sociologists have a fundamental responsibility to hold those in power to account and reveal the mechanisms that produce inequalities. I think that butlers and the ‘labour of distinction’ concept, in effect, reveals a kind of crack in some of the ways in which elites wield power.
Elites excel at portraying themselves as superior, often using culture to do so. As sociologists we have a long history of demystifying this. Not only do we show how the very notion of ‘good taste’ is a social construct, but also how elites have the power to define their taste as the one that is good. We've also demonstrated that elites benefit from a privileged upbringing, which familiarizes them with elite culture early on. For example, someone whose family frequently hosted black-tie dinner parties would naturally feel more at ease at such events.
Our paper contributes to these critiques by highlighting that the most powerful elites rely on labor to project an image of good taste. There is something hypocritical about distinguishing yourself from ordinary people through the efforts of those very people.
My goal in developing this theoretical framework is to explore how the identified labor process might be more widespread than we realize. Take Trump, for instance. Trump has apparently authored numerous books and, at first glance, we might believe that he actually has. And this impression might add to the notion that he is naturally talented or intelligent. But those who worked for him during his first administration knew otherwise – joking among themselves that “Trump has written more books than he’s read” – they knew that he relied heavily on ghost-writers! Exposing this hidden labour, I believe, enables us to both see through the smokescreen and see where the smoke is coming from.
As the theme of this edition is AI: have you used AI in your research, or did you ever think to study the importance of AI as your research developed?
No, I haven’t specifically studied AI or used AI in my research. Still, I think there something to say about it in relation to how AI is impacting the services and care sector.
Butlers illustrate how care is stratified, reflecting social differences and status. They cater excessively to their employers, preparing rooms, cleaning up, and anticipating needs, knowing what they want before they know themselves. While butlers and luxury hotel workers provide personalized care, many everyday services are becoming automated through AI. For instance, Amazon sends AI-generated apology letters. Sociologist Alison Pugh's new book explores how, in the future, services involving human connection may become exclusive to the privileged, amplifying the "butler effect" we're witnessing.
