Professional Emotions in Court

Professional Emotions in Court examines the paramount role of emotions in the legal professions and in the functioning of the democratic judicial system. Based on extensive interview and observation data in Sweden, the authors highlight the silenced background emotions and the tacitly habituated emotion management in the daily work at courts and prosecution offices. Following participants ‘backstage’ – whether at the office or at lunch – in order to observe preparations for and reflections on the performance in court itself, this book sheds light on the emotionality of courtroom interactions, such as professional collaboration, negotiations, and challenges, with the analysis of micro-interactions being situated in the broader structural regime of the legal system – the emotive-cognitive judicial frame – throughout. A demonstration of the false dichotomy between emotion and reason that lies behind the assumption of a judicial system that operates rationally and without emotion, Professional Emotions in Court reveals how this assumption shapes professionals’ perceptions and performance of their work, but hampers emotional reflexivity, and questions whether the judicial system might gain in legitimacy if the role of emotional processes were recognized and reflected upon

Professional Emotions in Court

Professional Emotions in Court examines the paramount role of emotions in the legal professions and in the functioning of the democratic judicial system. Based on extensive interview and observation data in Sweden, the authors highlight the silenced background emotions and the tacitly habituated emotion management in the daily work at courts and prosecution offices. Following participants ‘backstage’ – whether at the office or at lunch – in order to observe preparations for and reflections on the performance in court itself, this book sheds light on the emotionality of courtroom interactions, such as professional collaboration, negotiations, and challenges, with the analysis of micro-interactions being situated in the broader structural regime of the legal system – the emotive-cognitive judicial frame – throughout. A demonstration of the false dichotomy between emotion and reason that lies behind the assumption of a judicial system that operates rationally and without emotion, Professional Emotions in Court reveals how this assumption shapes professionals’ perceptions and performance of their work, but hampers emotional reflexivity, and questions whether the judicial system might gain in legitimacy if the role of emotional processes were recognized and reflected upon

Observing judicial work and emotions: using two researchers

Author version made available in accordance with publisher policy.Observation is an important component of research to examine complex social settings and is well-established for studying courtroom dynamics and judicial behaviour. However, the many activities occurring at once and the multiple participants, lay and professional, make it impossible for a sole researcher to observe and understand everything occurring in the courtroom. This article reports on the use of two researchers to undertake court observations, in two different studies, each nested in a different research design. The social nature of data collection and the value of dialogue between the two researchers in interpreting observed events, especially when studying emotion, are readily apparent in both studiesFunding for the Australian research includes: a 2001 University–Industry Research Collaborative Grant with Flinders University and the Association of Australian Magistrates (AAM) and financial support from the Australasian Institute of Judicial Administration (AIJA); an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project Grant (LP0210306) with AAM and all magistrates courts; and two ARC Discovery Project Grants (DP0665198, DP1096888). The Swedish Research is funded by the Swedish Research Council (2011-1553) and the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (2011-0671)

Stage Actors and Emotions at Work

We examine the distinctions between ‘playing’ and ‘playing at’ and between deep and surface acting made by Goffman and Hochschild, using examples from stage-rehearsals. This reveals how stage actors switch between these modes and employ various manifestations, rather than using either of them exclusively. The findings are thought to have conceptual implications beyond the particular case of stage acting. One tentative conclusion is that the difference between an actor rehearsing an emotion-laden situation and experiencing a similar situation in real life lies in how the situation is confronted and handled rather than in the actual emotions

Professional emotion management as a rehearsal process

The work of stage actors has long been used as a simile for every day role playing, generating theoretical concepts to describe how people work to pre-sent themselves in general and how they manage their emotions in particular. Building on this tradition, this article analyses professional stage actors’ deliberate emotion management as an embodied professionalisation process, focusing the relation between emotional experience and expression through the concepts of decoupling, double agency and habituation. Observations and interviews with thea-tre actors rehearsing for a role revealed how they gradually develop a capacity for double agency, decoupling the experience from the expression of emotions, which are eventually habituated in a form adapted to the role character. This process of professionalising emotion management is beneficial to the presentation of role-appropriate emotions and furthers the ability to cope with the endeavour of manag-ing emotions at work. Implications for professions outside the artistic domain are discussed

Emotional Participation : the use of the observer’s emotions as a methodological tool when studying professional stage actors rehearsing a role for the stage

This contribution aims to identify and clarify emotional aspects of conducting observation studies. The researcher, in most cases, does not want to interfere with or influence the phenomenon under observation, but uses her/himself as a tool to collect material. Even if the observer does not participate verbally, s/he can be emotionally participative using her/his emotions as a methodological tool, generating reflections and insights relative to the situations and persons that are the object of observation. Earlier contributions from social anthropology and psychotherapy are discussed and compared to examples from observations on the rehearsals of two theatre productions. One crucial point is that the researcher’s emotions can be more or less congruent with the situation at hand; a match as well as a mis-match can be used as information in the research process. Furthermore, the emotional expressions displayed by professional actors can be more or less emotionally anchored within them. Do the observer’s feelings correlate with the research subjects’ felt emotions or their portrayed emotions? Reflections on these issues can be used in interviews with research subjects to attain a more nuanced and tangible interpretation of the studied phenomenon

Rehearsing Emotions : The Process of Creating a Role for the Stage

This thesis takes as its starting point the dramaturgical metaphor of the world as a stage, which is used in sociological role theories. These theories often presume what stage acting is about in order to use it as a simile for every day acting. My intention is to investigate how stage actors actually work with their roles, in particular how they work with emotions, and how it affects their private emotions. The thesis draws on participant observation and interviews with actors during the rehearsal phase of two productions at a large theatre in Sweden. The results show that the inhabiting of a role for the stage is more difficult and painstaking than has been assumed in role theories so far. Shame and insecurity are common, particularly in the start up phase of the rehearsals. Interestingly, these emotions do not disappear with growing experience, but instead become recognized and accepted as part of the work process. The primary focus is the interplay between the actors' experience and expression of emotions, often described in terms of surface and deep acting, concepts which are elaborated and put into a process perspective. Analysis of the rehearsal process revealed that actors gradually decouple the privately derived emotional experiences that they use to find their way into their characters from the emotions that they express on the stage. Thus private experiences are converted to professional emotional experiences and expressions, triggered by situational cues. When the experience has been expressed the physical manifestation can be repeated with a weaker base in a simultaneous experience, since the body remembers the expression. It is important though, that the emotional expression is not completely decoupled from a concomitant experience; then the expression looses its vitality. The ability to professionalize emotions makes the transitions in and out of emotions less strenuous but can infiltrate and cause problems in the actors' intimate relations

Different Roads to Empathy : Stage Actors and Judges as Polar Cases

Using judges and stage actors as instructive polar types this article elucidates factors that influence the inclination to empathise. Both come in close contact with dramatic life stories on an everyday basis but approach empathy from contrasting vantage points: emotional distance versus emotional engagement. Similarities between these polar types can thus disentangle some of the factors that influence professional empathic perspective taking in more general terms. It is argued that reality or fiction in itself does not promote empathy, but the presence of a complete narrative structure which allows for personal recognition of shared attributes or experiences. In both professions the decoupling of emotions from private connotations, individual responsibility for interpretations on stage or in verdicts and defamiliarisation of private experiences can promote empathic perspective taking whereas it is prevented by one-sided perspective taking; for example, by judicial encoding (judges) or getting stuck in private experiences (stage actors). Organisational obstacles to empathy include hierarchal work structures or a ‘teflon culture’

Making Independent Decisions Together : Rational Emotions in Legal Adjudication

This article analyzes rational decision-making in court as an emotivecognitiveprocess formed in and through social interaction. Currenttheoretical perspectives have shown how emotion and thought areintertwined in the workings of the human brain but have seldom elaboratedon the contextual and structural features of rational-emotionaldecision-making. I propose a model that maps emotional processesand emotional management demands to the temporally extended,stepwise process of rational-legal decision-making. I show that (a) thebounded structure of the decision-making process actualizes differentemotive-cognitive complexes at different stages and (b) the demand forobjectivity in rational decision-making calls for parallel emotional processesand subject positions to remain independent while sustainingsocial cohesion

Uppmärksamma kroppar : närhet, avstånd och rörelse på och utanför scenen

Det här kapitlet tar avstamp i en av dessa händelser ’från fältet’, i detta fall en teater, som hänger sig kvar många år efteråt men som inte använts eftersom den innehåller för många trådar: lite om metod, lite om etik, mycket om kroppar och om närvaro och om kön om man vill. Händelsen börjar i ett misstag som jag utnyttjar men sen får betala för och som väckte känslor både hos mig och hos den jag mötte. Jag försöker här reda ut hur olika ingångar och upplevelser av denna händelse kan ge pusselbitar till att förstå kroppar i samspel. Som etnografiskt sinnade forskare försöker vi komma nära för att se ur någon annans perspektiv. Vi blir kanske avvisade, får gå därifrån, betrakta på avstånd eller komma tillbaka in i värmen och vara med. Vi vet att vår position påverkar vad vi ser, men vi tar ofta inte med positionerna mellan kropparna på fältet i våra analyser. Jag menar inte positioner som statiska entiteter, utan som dynamiska relationer som ändrar balansen i möten och som skapar handlingsmöjligheter och begränsningar och som kan få symboliska betydelser och därmed cementera relationer