The ethics of service work in a neoliberal healthcare context: doing embodied and “dirty” emotional labor

Abstract

Purpose

The authors explore how service workers negotiate emotional laboring with “dirty” emotions while trying to meet the demands of neoliberal healthcare. In doing so, the authors theorize emotional labor in the context of healthcare as a type of embodied and emotional “dirty” work.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors apply interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to their data collected from National Health Service (NHS) workers in the United Kingdom (UK).

Findings

The authors’ data show that healthcare service workers absorb, contain and quarantine emotional “dirt”, thereby protecting their organization at a cost to their own well-being. Workers also perform embodied practices to try to absolve themselves of their “dirty” labor.

Originality/value

The authors extend research on emotional “dirty” work and theorize that emotional labor can also be conceptualized as “dirty” work. Further, the authors show that emotionally laboring with “dirty” emotions is an embodied phenomenon, which involves workers absorbing and containing patients' emotional “dirt” to protect the institution (at the expense of their well-being).

Citation

Whiley, L.A. and Grandy, G. (2022), "The ethics of service work in a neoliberal healthcare context: doing embodied and “dirty” emotional labor", Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, Vol. 17 No. 1, pp. 136-157. https://doi.org/10.1108/QROM-08-2020-2005