ABSTRACT
In order to develop Hochschild’s notion of emotional labour (including emotion management, surface and deep acting) a more comprehensive approach towards emotion is required. In Being Human, Margaret Archer (2000) looks at how emotion connects to personal identity and the acquisition of social identity. She argues that emotions are elicited in response to the relationship individuals have with the natural, material and social world. Striking a balance between different sets of emotions, which emerge in response to these different forms of interaction, is part of the management process. For Archer, this is an ongoing process, mediated through a reflexive ‘inner dialogue’. Emotions that emerge as a result of this are intrinsically linked to personal identity, enacted out through social interaction as expressions of social identity. Thus, Archer demonstrates how emotion is intrinsically connected to a sense of personal and social identity without losing the centrality of interaction. In addition, she includes an understanding of the varied ways in which emotion is elicited and experienced in interaction, and which can in itself generate emotion; and that emotion management can be both immediate and extended over a period of time. This chapter introduces Archer’s approach to emotion and contrasts it with Hochschild’s. It considers how it can be used to develop and complement Hochschild’s notion of emotional labour in respect to her understanding of emotion and its relationship with self-identity.
