Sherpa or Superhero? Tragic Choices, Emotional Labor, and the Cultivation of Emotional Capital in Victim Advocacy

• In Event: Support and advocacy for victim-survivors of gender-based violence

Abstract

This paper examines the emotional labor of victim advocates in North America, analyzing how workers combat the challenges of working within an underfunded and overburdened social support landscape. Drawing on 32 interviews with a diverse research sample of advocates working in Vancouver, British Columbia, and St. Louis, Missouri—including lawyers, shelter managers, therapists, crisis hotline staff, and courtroom advocates—we introduce the metaphors of the sherpa and the superhero to characterize two distinct emotional orientations toward advocating for domestic and sexual violence victims. While superheroes go beyond their formal job descriptions and engage in acts of covert activism that aspire to best-case outcomes for violence survivors, sherpas adopt a pragmatic approach that foregrounds managing survivors' expectations within a structurally flawed system. Our study builds on emotional management theory (Hochschild 1979), demonstrating how deep and surface acting function not only as mechanisms for mitigating burnout and compassion fatigue on the frontlines of victim service provision, but also as a means of enhancing advocates’ sense of professional purpose and resilience. While existing research tends to foreground the costs of advocacy—highlighting role ambiguity, low pay, and emotional exhaustion—we demonstrate that skillful emotional management allows victim advocates to cultivate emotional capital, a resource that contributes to their well-being both at, and beyond, work. Our comparative analysis of advocacy in Vancouver and St. Louis offers a nuanced perspective on caring within uncaring organizations.

Authors

• Rebecca Lennox, University of Missouri-St. Louis

• Wendy Chan, Simon Fraser University