Work in all its guises is a fundamental part of the human experience,
and yet it is a setting where emotions rarely take centre stage. This
edited collection interrogates the troubled relationship between emotion
and work to shed light on the feelings and meaning of both paid and
unpaid labour from the late nineteenth to the twenty-first century.
Central to this book is a reappraisal of 'emotional labour', now
associated with the household and 'life admin' work largely undertaken
by women and which reflects and perpetuates gender inequalities.
Critiquing this term, and the history of how work has made us feel,
Feelings and Work in Modern History explores the changing values we
have ascribed to our labour, examines the methods deployed by workplaces
to manage or 'administrate' our emotions, and traces feelings through
19th, 20th and 21st century workplaces in Europe, Asia and South
America.
Exploring the damages wrought to physical and emotional health by
certain workplaces and practices, critiquing the pathologisation of some
emotional responses to work, and acknowledging the joy and meaning
people derive from their labour, this book appraises the notion of a
'work-life balance', explores the changing notions of professionalism
and critically engages with the history of capitalism. In doing so, it
interrogates the lasting impact of some of these histories on the
current and future emotional landscape of labour.
