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Waters, Jaime; Westaby, Chalen; Fowler, Andrew and Phillips, Jake
(2022).
URL: https://www.routledge.com/Emotional-Labour-in-Crim...
Abstract
When it comes to emotional labour in the field of criminology, much of the focus has been on the criminal justice professions. However, it is also the case that the research of criminal justice and criminal justice engaged populations demands a high degree of emotion management. Criminological researchers can be exposed to potentially distressing accounts of people’s experiences and put in potentially emotionally charged environments. This chapter therefore explores the emotional labour undertaken by criminological researchers engaged in empirical research. Divided into two parts, the first part of the chapter identifies extant research on the ways in which qualitative criminological researchers manage their emotions in order to do research, with a focus on gaining access, collecting data and exiting the field. The second part of the chapter is a case study which presents the analysis of 30 interviews with criminological researchers to identify the main ways in which criminological research requires the use of emotional labour. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how researchers can ameliorate the negative consequences of emotional labour in their research and how institutions can support staff in their work. This is particularly important for early career researchers and when we think about the role of research in the context of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) and other structural pressures which researchers face.