Meeting Facilitators: Dr. Anwar Ahmed, Sadia Shad, and Anastasia Zhuravleva
In this meeting of LLED Antiracist Caucuses (IBPOC/Racialized Caucus & White Caucus), we will discuss emotional labour, especially as it relates to antiracist work.
Stimulus Texts:
Please read/watch the following materials before our meeting on Thursday, October 12th from 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm.
- Article (approx. 10-min read): Arlie Hochschild: Housework Isn’t ‘Emotional Labor’ – The Atlantic
- YouTube video (13:40 mins): Leah Cowan: Emotional labour is a heavier burden for some of us
Optional Stimulus Text:
● Excerpt from: Benesch, S. (2017). Emotions and English language teaching: Exploring teachers’ emotion labor. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315736181
Emotion vs Emotional Labour “My use of emotion labor in the title and throughout the book rather than emotional labor, a more commonly used phrase, is due to the negative connotation of emotional, a term used to suggest that someone, especially a woman, is acting in an overwrought and socially undesirable manner. I therefore wanted to avoid that type of association. By pairing emotion and labor I also hope to communicate that English language teaching connects affect and intellect, body and work, passion and rationality, and that it is intimately and intricately influenced by power relations. I’ve tried to be consistent in bringing these often-separated aspects of ELT together, hoping to provoke greater research and pedagogical interest in emotion labor in years to come.” (p. 12) Discussion Questions: 1. How do you understand emotional labour? 2. Do you think that “the act of mitigating [racialized] harassment” (Cowan, 2019) can be emotional labour? If you are comfortable, please share an example. 3. Can we bring the concept of emotional labour to antiracist work? If so, how? a) Can conversations about emotional labour be helpful to account for power, privilege, and fragility? b) Can emotional labour be fun and useful for building antiracist solidarity and allyship? 4. How can we address emotional labour in the classroom as teachers and students?
Discussion Questions:
- How do you understand emotional labour?
- Do you think that “the act of mitigating [racialized] harassment” (Cowan, 2019) can be emotional labour? If you are comfortable, please share an example.
- Can we bring the concept of emotional labour to antiracist work? If so, how?
a) Can conversations about emotional labour be helpful to account for power, privilege, and fragility?
b) Can emotional labour be fun and useful for building antiracist solidarity and allyship? - How can we address emotional labour in the classroom as teachers and students?