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 Thema:
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De-Institutionalization, Revolving-Door, Labor Markets and Emotions. |
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| Involvierte:
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Prof. Dr. H. Flam |
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| Zeitraum:
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unbekannt
- unbekannt |
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Projektstatus:
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laufend |
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Finanzierung:
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Beschreibung:
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| Kurzbeschreibung |
| When Arlie Hochschild (1983) in the US or Jürgen Gerhards and Wolfgang Dunkel (Gerhards 1988; Dunkel 1988; Badura 1990) in Germany tried to legitimate sociology of emotions, they pointed to the enormous expansion of the service sector which, much more than the traditional industries, called for emotion work. Today revolcing-door labor markets and de-institutionalized biographies set in a context of multi-optional societies supply another justification for sociology of emotions and for its additional focus on self- and other-related emotions. The prevalent focus on emotion work is confining. It prevents us from asking new questions about the nature of Western societies in which we live. Yet, as I argue elsewhere (Flam 1999), sociology of emotions has arrived at a point where it can and should make a step towards macro-level theorizing. It needs to link its theorizing about emotions in and about work organizations to a theory of society. Katherine Newman (1988), Richard Sennett (1998) and Barbara Ehrenreich (1994) in the US, and Martin Kohli (1985;1988) and Ulrich Beck (1986) in Germany help to link a macro-concern with the vicissitudes of the capitalist economy to a micro-concern with the emotions of people who have to cope with these ups-and-downs. Based on their research we can identify three distinct research niches: career pursuit, lay-offs and occupational discontinuity. Emotions typical of each can be studied in their own right. Important is that not only work- but also self- and other-centered emotions should become focal. This research project focuses on one particular emotion - anxiety - in these three research niches, although also other emotions receive some attention. The project has been launched within "research experience" offered at the Institute of Sociology in Winter/Summer 1999-2000. Students went through intensive training and by the end of the first term conducted about 30 autobiographic, narrative interviews with East Germans. They are to continue in the Summer term. An effort is in progress to locate collaborators in Berlin, Holland, Spain and Poland in order to include variations in state/family support and religions among the contextual variables. | |
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