Dirty Work and Emotional Labor

The class seeks to discuss work and organizations’ social life with respect to two distinct but intersecting divisions of labor: The first perspective considers work as structured by a moral division of labor, qualifying some jobs dirtier than others. Such dirty work deals with pollution, bodily fluids, contamination, and in general it is delegated to a lower status occupation to deal with. Doing dirty work may taint the job holders’ social status as they deal with moral problems. Therefore, dirty work raises questions of stigma management, identity maintenance, and group membership. The second perspective centers on the emotional requirements of work, especially the emotional labor of service work. Whereas dirty work is concerned with the moral status of the executing staff, the emotional division of labor is tied to the gender order and respective expectations. Rooted in theories of alienation, research on emotion work highlights the feeling rules, emotion management and the social and emotional costs forced upon service workers. Emotional labor research raises questions of gender role scripts and the sexualizing and racializing of services. Both concepts – dirty work and emotional labor – highlight the body as a crucial site for occupational identities and social order. The class readings comprise conceptual and empirical research on both dirty work and emotional labor, using typical occupations (e.g. janitors, firefighters, garbage collectors, prostitutes, massage therapists) which routinely deal with troublesome issues (e.g. sickness, death, body aesthetics, wellness, care). The class will be held in English. Institut für Soziologie Universität Hannover WiSe 2016/17 Dozent