Embodying emotional dirty work: a messy text of patrolling the border

Abstract

Purpose-"Dirty work" is an embodied, emotional activity, and may best be expressed through narrative thick description. The purpose of this paper is to employ creative analytic techniques through a "messy text" for better understanding the tacit knowledge and emotionality of dirty work and dirty research. The vignettes, based upon ethnographic fieldwork with US Border Patrol agents, viscerally reveal the embodied emotions of dirty work and doing dirty research. Design/methodology/approach-The research draws on a two and a half year ethnography of the US Border Patrol in which the first author engaged in participant observation, shadowing, and interviews. Based upon the iterative data analysis and narrative writing techniques using verbatim quotations and field data, the essay provides a series of vignettes that explore the multi-faceted feelings of dirty work. Findings-Tacit knowledge about dirty work is unmasked and known through experiences of the body as well as emotional reactions to the scene. A table listing the emotions that emerged in these stories supplements the narrative text. The analysis shows how communication about emotions provides a sense-making tool that, in turn, elucidates both the challenges and the potential highlights of doing dirty work. In particular, findings suggest that emotional ambiguity the "moral emotions" of guilt and shame may serve as sense-making tools that can help in ethical decision making and a re-framing of challenging situations. Originality/value-A field immersion alongside dirty workers, coupled with a creative writing approach, provides access to the fleeting, embodied, and fragmented nature of tacit knowledgeanswering the questions of what dirty work feels like. The essay provides a behind the scenes exploration of US Border Patrol agents-a profession that is alternately stigmatized or hidden from public view. Finally, the piece provides a self-reflexive account of the messy realities of conducting "dirty research" in a way that is open ended and embodied.

Tracking the sociomaterial traces of affect at the crossroads of affect and practice theories

“…Writing is therefore another research practice, that is an affect-laden process, dialoguing with the body of the author/reader, the attunement within bodies, and the resonance thus produced when the text finds the particular form adequate to what it describes. To write differently in organization studies responds to an emerging need to acknowledge proximity with the persons and the events in the fieldwork, and to write the stories in a way that is intended to bring them to life (Gibbs, 2015;Rivera and Tracy, 2014;Stewart, 2007;Sergi and Hallin, 2011). overcome by a sense of fatigue which grew more and more intense.…”

Lithuanian State Border Guard Service officers’ traumatic experiences and their psychological counselling needs and attitudes

“…74% of Israeli SBGS officers report having experienced at least one traumatic event at work (Malach-Pines & Keinan, 2006), US border patrol guards report experiencing physical assault, stonings and shootings (Nuñez-Neto, 2008). Moreover, working in the SBGS is known as "dirty work" (Rivera & Tracy, 2014) due to the fact that the officers place themselves in physical risk and find themselves in close contact with stigmatized populations such as criminals or immigrants. Sometimes employees in the SBGS even use morally questionable methods such as force or coercion (Rivera & Tracy, 2014).…”

“…Moreover, working in the SBGS is known as "dirty work" (Rivera & Tracy, 2014) due to the fact that the officers place themselves in physical risk and find themselves in close contact with stigmatized populations such as criminals or immigrants. Sometimes employees in the SBGS even use morally questionable methods such as force or coercion (Rivera & Tracy, 2014).…”

“…Yet traumatic exposure in the SBGS has not been researched thoroughly and information is scarce. Society knows very little about this line of work; most opinions are formed by the media using mixed messages, portraying work in the SBGS as heroic in some stories and in others emphasizing the abuse, power or inappropriate decisions of the officers (Rivera & Tracy, 2014).…”

Knowing cows: Transformative mobilizations of human and non‐human bodies in an emotionography of the slaughterhouse

“…Yet, the veneer of the ideal slaughter worker is challenged by the eruption of submerged emotions on the killing floor and the negotiation of the emotional lives of the cattle they kill. Hegemonic masculine ideals underpin the ideal slaughterhouse worker and is embodied through a narrative of professionalism and the donning of a uniform combined with skilled vision and the ‘fleeting, embodied and fragmented nature of tacit knowledge’ (Rivera & Tracy, , p. 201). In light of the literature on slaughter, gender studies and the sociology of emotion, the experiences of both the human and non‐human participants will be foregrounded in an emotionography of the slaughterhouse.…”