ABSTRACT
While bullying as a social interaction is widely known and understood within the culture of everyday life, and is further considered to be an increasing practice within the professional workforce (Alexander and Fraser 2004, Bowie 2002, McCarthy and Barker 2000, Budd 1999, Roberts 1983), such practices largely remain hidden from direct public scrutiny. Experiences of bullying, for both victim and perpetrator, are connected to complex issues of self esteem and social shame. Attempts in recent decades to write policies which regulate bullying behaviours within social institutions and workplaces have, this chapter suggests, driven such conduct into even more covert locations and forms of enactment. The use for instance of communicative technologies which are considered ‘private’ or ‘personal’ – such as the telephone – makes both institutional scrutiny and research-based analysis harder than ever.
