“Leave Your Emotions at Home”: Bereavement, Organizational Space, and Professional Identity

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article explores how bereaved workers in white-collar jobs manage their emotional expression with coworkers in professional work spaces. During times of bereavement, employees are faced with the challenge of both maintaining a professional identity and renegotiating personal identity in relation to their loss. This challenge is rooted in separate spheres thinking that has distinguished private life, emotions, and femininity from public life, rationality, and masculinity. Given that workers are discouraged from outwardly displaying negative emotions at work, we look at what opportunities exist for them to express grief. Our research highlights how employees’ expressions of grief are informed by the symbolic meanings of organizational space. It also suggests that particular social constructions of work space offer some opportunities for resistance to professional norms, but that these opportunities may be constrained by a variety of factors, including gender, work status, relationships, and other aspects of social identity.