Mobilizing with Emotion Work in Strategic Action Fields

• In Event: 161 - Section on Organizations, Occupation and Work Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 12. Creativity and Strategic Action in the Workplace

Abstract

In this paper I contribute to Fligstein & McAdam’s (2011) recent theoretical work on Strategic Action Fields by highlighting the importance of emotion work for skilled strategic actors in a social movement organization (a Do-It-Yourself (DIY), Pay-What-You-Can (PWYC) bicycle repair shop). Specifically, I analyze the emotional mechanisms involved in mobilizing and demobilizing participation in organizational governance (attending meetings, taking on roles of greater responsibility, etc). I argue that, emotion work (Hochschild 1983) is an important component of the social skill (Fligstein 2001) that is required to inspire cooperation in local interaction orders, and that such a union offers a way to embed the study of emotions into more mainstream strands of social movement theory. This case shows more evidence that emotional cultures are of strategic importance to organizational structures and goals. Furthermore, the case suggests that a special kind of meta-emotional skills – the ability to credibly commit to different emotion work and inspire hope and new actions in others – is very important for changing a social movement organization’s emotional culture and interaction order, and should be studied further.

Author

• Angela Kalyta, McGill University