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Within public services there is a widely recognised role for workers who operate across organisational and professional boundaries. Much of this literature focusses on the organisational implications rather than on how boundary spanners engage with citizens. An increased number of public service roles require boundary spanning to support citizens with cross-cutting issues. The purpose of this paper is to explicate the emotional labour within the interactions that boundary spanners have with citizens, requiring adherence to display rules and building trust.

This is a conceptual paper which draws on illustrative examples to draw out the emotional labour within two types of boundary spanning: explicit and emergent.

Emotional labour theory offers a way to classify these interactions as requiring high, medium or low degrees of emotional labour. Boundary spanning theory contributes an understanding of how emotional labour is likely to be differently experienced depending on whether the boundary spanning is an explicit part of the job, or an emergent property.

Drawing on examples from public service work in a range of advanced democracies, the authors make a theoretical argument, suggesting that a more complete view of boundary spanning must account for individual-level affect and demands upon workers. Such a focus captures the “how” of the boundary spanning public encounter, and not just the institutional, political and organisational dimensions examined in most boundary spanning literatures.

This study examines the application of arts-based research (ABR) methods in producing knowledge about the lived experiences of disasters, particularly focusing on the effects of flooding in an informal settlement in South Africa. It emphasizes the use of playdough sculpting as a tool for storytelling, aiming to address and reduce power imbalances between local participants and external researchers.

The study employed a qualitative approach, using playdough sculpting workshops conducted in the Quarry Road West informal settlement in Durban. These workshops were designed to capture the personal stories of individuals affected by the 2022 Durban floods. Data were collected through participant observation, photography and interviews, and were analyzed using a thematic framework to identify recurring patterns in the participants’ disaster experiences.

The research demonstrates that ABR methods, particularly playdough sculpting, effectively foster participatory engagement in disaster research. This method provided a platform for participants to describe their embodied experiences of the floods, addressing uneven epistemological power dynamics. It also highlighted the potential of ABR in facilitating the decolonization of disaster research by centering local narratives.

This study offers insights into the potential of ABR as a creative methodology in disaster research. It highlights how ABR can complement traditional research approaches by incorporating local perspectives and fostering more inclusive knowledge production in the context of disasters. The study also presents a ten-step guideline for applying playdough sculpting across various disciplines.