emotional labour

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emotional labour For Arlie Hochschild (The Managed Heart, 1983), this is the work done with feelings, as part of paid employment. People in many of the personal service occupations—such as airline stewardesses, waitresses, bartenders, and such like—are paid to ‘sell their emotions’. Emotions here can become a commodity. Arguably, more and more work in the Western world is of this type, particularly in those occupations dominated by women. See also EMOTION, SOCIOLOGY OF.

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