Digital labour is 'emotional labour'

Abstract

This chapter considers the 'emotional labour' involved in digital work and reflects on the emotionality inherent within everyday digital practices and behaviours in museums and heritage organisations. It argues that only by better articulating the affective dimensions of working with technology can we build a more nuanced understanding of the future of work in such environments. ‘Emotional Labour’ has been an object of sociological study in the workplace since the 1980s, but rarely has it been considered in the context of museum digital work. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, however, the frequently hidden ‘emotional labour’ involved in museum work has become difficult to ignore, with those advocating for digital innovation being some of the most affected. First, drawing on Arlie Russell Hochschild’s seminal study, The Managed Heart (1983), the author will consider applications to date of ‘emotional labour’ in the study of cultural and knowledge work, and how it might be usefully theorised for our contemporary moment in museum technology. Second, sharing the author’s fieldwork, observational analysis, and institution-based action research in this area, the chapter will propose that a greater and more formal acknowledgement of ‘emotional labour’ in museum technology can revolutionise museum work more generally – an acknowledgement overtly feminist in its approach. It concludes by suggesting that, through a more robust valuation of the emotional labour inherent within digital work, we can build fairer, more equitable working practices across all aspects of the museum workplace