How to acknowledge the emotional labour of academic work

Plus links to some past articles for my newer subscribers. (Welcome! You are in the right place.)

Hello and welcome to Academia Made Easier. I am so glad that you are here.  

I have been thinking a fair bit lately about the current realities of work. As I wrote a few weeks ago (“How to think about burnout and academia”), I agree with Jonathan Malesic’s argument (see The End of Burnout) that contemporary work culture both promotes and celebrates burnout, to the detriment of all of us. We exist in a pervasive culture of hustle, competition, and busyness. While academia enjoys some advantages of flexibility compared to other sectors, academia is not exempt from burnout culture.

A big part of this burnout culture is the constant pressure of ‘more’. More work, more projects, more goals, more activity. Some of this is self-imposed (see my February newsletter, “How to allow less than enough to be enough”). Some of this is externally-imposed (rising work responsibilities and/or standards for employment). We can recognize these things in our workloads, point to them and say, “That’s why I am so exhausted.”

But another part of the burnout culture is the non-recognition of the hidden labour that fails to get included in our annual reviews or CV updates. This is the emotional labour inherent in many jobs, including academia. To confront burnout culture in academia, we must acknowledge this hidden component of our workloads. And it’s what today’s small thing to try immediately is about.

One Small Thing to Try Immediately: Identify and talk about emotional labour

One of the joys of academic work is the ability to collaborate with amazing colleagues from other disciplines. I recently had the pleasure of doing so with my good friend, Dr.  Christie Schultz, author of Leading with Feminist Care Ethics in Higher Education. This spring, we are coauthoring a three-part series on emotional labour in academia for my column in University Affairs. The first of these columns, “Acknowledging the emotional labour of academic work”, was released this week. 

In this first column, Christie and I note the definition of emotional labour (“the management of feelings that is done as part of one’s paid employment”) and the challenges of this work (specifically, it is often unacknowledged, demanding work, and unequally distributed). We argue that emotional labour should be treated as a “given” part of academic work. 

I won’t restate our column here, but rather encourage you to identify the emotional labour that you and your colleagues are doing and to launch discussion in your own networks about this work. Here are some ideas on how to do so:

1. Learn more about emotional labour. My and Christie’s column is a quick way to start. Please read it as an entry into the topic.

2.  Identify the areas in your academic work in which managing your own and others’ emotions demands your time and energy. In our column, Christie and I identify the following: “Emotional caretaking of students related to issues of student well-being and mental health; Emotional caretaking of colleagues; Managing issues of academic integrity; Mentoring of students, research assistants, early career faculty and colleagues; Service work that involves managing distributions of resources or other contentious issues; Advancing equity, diversity, inclusion and decolonization work; [and] Conducting research on emotionally challenging topics.” Your list may include some of these, and perhaps other areas. Take a moment to list these for yourself, and then label this work as emotional labour. Labels are powerful.

3. Talk to at least one academic colleague about the role of emotional labour in your respective work. I am of the opinion that we need to start talking about emotional labour and how it impacts us. So… let’s do that. Ask a trusted colleague about their experiences with emotional labour. Forward this email/post to your academic BFF and ask for their opinion. Raise the subject around the water cooler. (Do water coolers still exist? We have a water bottle filling station. I love it.) Let’s start some conversations.

And watch for part 2 of the series, where we discuss using skills of care to manage emotional labour. Coming soon!

Until next time…

How does emotional labour factor into your own work? What is your experience? I would love to hear from you. Please share in the comments. And a special shout out and thank you to the academic staff working in student support services. I see the work you do and admire your dedication and commitment. 

Stay well, my colleagues. 

P.S. Christie and I were very pleased to see our column appear in Academia Top Ten. Here’s hoping we can prompt some awareness and discussion! 🤞🤞

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