ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a variety of practitioners' performances to explain how affect takes shape in certain situated social activities and how this subsequently evokes emotive encounters amongst workers. Producing credible performances to impress others is therefore an organizational issue and one which develops from the cultural routines, linguistic practices and storytelling sessions which all take place within social work. The chapter begins by introducing Goffman's work, then goes on to explore how his perspective has been used to inform studies of social work organizations. It draws on material from an ethnographic study of a child protection statutory agency to explore how narrative performances carried out between social workers convey an affective dimension in which professional identities are partly shaped. Exploring the context in which the field of child protection social work is currently situated is important if we are to consider the professional identity of its practitioners.
