ePrints

Emotion management as struggle in dirty work: the experiences of exotic dancers

Lookup NU author(s): Professor Sharon MavinORCiD

Downloads

• Accepted version [.pdf]

Licence

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Abstract

We further the research to date on ambiguity, ambivalence and contradiction in organisation studies by integrating the dirty work and emotion management literatures. Our intent is to better understand the complex cognitive processes underpinning everyday experiences of those working in what has been perceived to be a high-breadth high-depth stigmatised occupation, that is, exotic dancing. Dancers’ stories reveal they are acutely aware of social and moral taint associated with the work and in turn their self-identities. They adopt a number of strategies to manage their spoiled identities and we contribute by unpicking the cognitive processes that underpin these strategies. In extending strategies of emotional ambivalence at work and stigma management, we conclude that through a lens of emotion management as struggle, exotic dancers and more broadly dirty workers, do not ‘resolve’ the ambivalence, contradiction and ambiguity they confront but can be seen to experience at best a type of contingent coherence in their everyday work.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Grandy G, Mavin S

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion

Year: 2014

Volume: 6

Issue: 2

Pages: 131-154

Print publication date: 01/03/2014

Acceptance date: 01/10/2012

Date deposited: 09/09/2017

ISSN (print): 1740-8938

ISSN (electronic): 1740-8946

Publisher: Inderscience Publishers

URL: https://doi.org/10.1504/IJWOE.2014.060927

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1504/IJWOE.2014.060927

Altmetrics

Share