Emotional Sequestration and the Hidden Workforce of Disaster Recovery

• In Event: Environmental Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 15: Disaster, Risk, and Recovery

Abstract

As climate-related disasters become more frequent and severe, disaster recovery has become a permanent and growing sector of the U.S. economy. Yet the workers who clear debris, demolish damaged structures, remove toxic mold, and rebuild homes remain largely invisible in sociological research and public discourse. While first responders are widely recognized and celebrated, disaster-recovery workers—many of whom come from marginalized communities and work under precarious conditions—receive little public acknowledgment despite performing dangerous and emotionally demanding labor.

This qualitative study examines the lived experiences of disaster-recovery workers in construction and demolition and in restoration and remediation industries. Drawing on in-depth interviews and participant observation across multiple disaster-affected regions, the research analyzes how workers navigate risk, precarity, and emotional strain in privatized recovery environments shaped by profit pressures. The project is grounded in theories of emotional labor (Hochschild 1983), moral injury (Shay 1994, 2014; Dean 2019), and disaster capitalism (Klein 2007).

Building on these frameworks, the study introduces the concept of emotional sequestration, which captures how workers’ emotions are both demanded and erased. Recovery workers must manage fear, grief, and compassion in interactions with survivors, yet their own emotional distress remains unrecognized and unsupported. Unlike first responders, they are not publicly valorized, even though they experience comparable emotional strain.

By centering this hidden workforce, the project advances the sociology of labor, disaster, and emotion. It shows how inequality, precarious employment, and emotional extraction are embedded within the business of recovery and calls for greater recognition and protection of workers in the expanding climate economy.

Author

• Jennifer Parker, Pennsylvania State University-Penn State Lehigh Valley