‘Navigating the travel blogger dispositif’: The importance of aesthetic labour within the digital work of British travel bloggers

Drawing on empirical research conducted with 19 British travel bloggers, the article reveals how aesthetic labour is a crucial practice in travel bloggers’ digital work, helping them in navigating platform capitalism, audience expectations and digital visibility. The article explores how through a range of aesthetic labour practices, travel bloggers ultimately seek to embody or resist a distinctive travel blogger ‘dispositif’ (or identity). It is through the lens of the ‘travel blogger dispositif’ that the article highlights how the aesthetic logics and algorithmic biases of platforms perpetuate an idealised version of the travel blogger ‘dispositif’, with participants challenging these digital biases through their aesthetic labour practices. This research contributes to the literature on digital labour by illustrating the intersectional, resistant and strategic nature of aesthetic work in platformed spaces, offering insights into how travel bloggers perform, negotiate and reshape their ‘dispositif’ identities within algorithmically driven digital environments.