An indivisible union? Assessing the marriage of Hochschild's emotional labour concept and labour process theory

Paul Brook

doi:10.1504/ijmcp.2010.037816

Abstract

Labour process theory (LPT) has progressively but critically adopted Hochschild's emotional labour theory, principally for analysis of service work. However, until recently there has been little detailed assessment from within the LPT tradition of emotional labour's theoretical roots, structure and overall compatibility. This article critically assesses contemporary debates within LPT on the compatibility of Hochschild's theory. It argues that while she makes foundational use of Marx's theory of labour power, she inadequately captures the contradictory nature of employment relations, the social basis of workplace emotions and the incompleteness of management control. This is principally due to her tendency to focus on the harm to individuals of emotional labour via her individualised concepts of 'transmutation of feelings', 'surface acting and deep acting'. For Hochschild's theory to be compatible, it requires a thorough dialectical understanding of workplace emotions and their management as contradictory social phenomena, which workers experience individually and collectively.

Highlights

Imprecise boundaries “It is interesting to note that in her initial article on ‘emotion work’, Hochschild made no reference to Marx and drew primarily on the interactionist social psychology of Goffman; in her subsequent book she commenced with a reference to Capital and made Marx’s analysis of alienation an important point of reference
What follows argues that the attraction of the emotional labour concept for the labour process analysis traditioni (LPA) is precisely because Hochschild explicitly defines and locates emotional labour within Marx’s concept of wage-labour by introducing it as an additional aspect of labour power, alongside physical and mental labour
For Hochschild, emotional labour is riven by structural tensions and contradictions borne of competitive market pressures and the employment relationship. While this selfevidently chimes with Labour Process Theory (LPT), to what extent is her specific theorisation of emotional labour as an aspect of labour power compatible?

Summary

Introduction

Imprecise boundaries “It is interesting to note that in her initial article on ‘emotion work’, Hochschild made no reference to Marx and drew primarily on the interactionist social psychology of Goffman; in her subsequent book she commenced with a reference to Capital and made Marx’s analysis of alienation an important point of reference. Hochschild argues management’s control is unstable, whereby workers frequently offer only ‘surface acting’ rather than genuinely felt performances She does not explicitly acknowledge the existence of an antagonistic relationship at the point of service production, her account of struggles within the emotional labour process is broadly compatible with LPT’s understanding. The common charge from within LPA that Hochschild’s theory inadequately captures the contradictory nature of workplace relations and the incompleteness of management control is a valid one (Bolton, 2005; Brook, 2009a; Callaghan and Thompson, 2002; Taylor, 1998; and Warhurst et al, 2009) This is because she overly focuses on the individual experience of emotional labour via her core notions of ‘surface acting’, ‘deep acting’ and ‘transmutation of feelings’, at the expense of wider workplace social relations. What follows concludes by arguing that the integration of the emotional labour concept within LPT requires a re-theorisation that provides a thorough dialectical understanding of workplace emotions

Contours and directions

Hochschild on emotional labour power

Agency and the indeterminacy of emotional labour

An incomplete transmutation?

Hochschild on resistance

Emotional labour power and LPT