Arlie R. Hochschild

Abstract

This chapter introduces to the ideas of American interactionist and feminist writer Arlie Russell Hochschild and her important work on emotions and interaction. Hochschild has made a major impact on interactionist thought since the mid-1970s with her work on emotions. Equally inspired by classic interactionism (Goffman) as well as critical social theory (such as Marx and Mills), Hochschild has created a unique framework for critically investigating and understanding social life in contemporary capitalist society. In this chapter, we revisit her by now classic work on emotion work and feeling rules in relation to her empirical studies of American corporate culture in The Managed Heart (1983). After that we will move into her much publicized thesis of the commercialization of human feeling in regard to her ideas of time-traps, outsourced selves and the commercialization of a multitude of intimate aspects of people’s lives. The chapter will show how – according to Hochschild – interactionism needs to incorporate an appreciation of emotions in order more fully to capture some of the major shifts in the lives of people in late capitalist societies.