Stewardessen en de sociologie van emoties. Hochschild's 'Managed Heart'

Samenvatting

Flight Attendants and the Sociology of Emotions. Flight Attendants and the Sociology of Emotions is a review article comparing A.R. Hochschild's study of flight attendants and her sociology of emotions with a figurational or process sociological study of flight attendants and with the theory of emotions entailed in this approach. Hochschild claims that smiles, feelings and emotion management in general have become manufactured products of commercial organizations; that they are processed, standardized and subjected to hierarchical control. In contrast, this article claims that demands on the emotion management of individuals and on individual self-regulation have indeed been rising - in processes of democratization - and that on this basis behavioural and emotional alternatives also increased - in processes of informalization. The study of flight attendants shows that informalization was also taken up in the air.