La mise au travail des émotions

Abstract

Taking in count emotions in work is much more frequent today in France. However, sociological analysis of emotional labour often concern service and care, even though it is also heuristic for technical activities analysis. This article analyse train drivers case. Their emotional work, which is often denied but always present, is more and more annoyed about new demanding managerial norms of performance and productivity. That entails more tiredness and nervousness both in private or public spaces. In this traditionally male professional sector which valorise virility, professionals feeling and display rules don’t authorize expressivity and emotional work. Emotions emerge as a consequence in nightmares and fantasies. In a context of less repressed discourse about hardness and pain, that trains drivers consider more and more unacceptable, the article question the role can play the “French” trade unionism, more familiar with primes negotiating than changing work.

Keywords

• body at work
• certifications
• sensor-motor resources
• fears
• professions’ emotional norms
• labour collective