Emotional styles in Russian maternity hospitals: juggling between khamstvo and smiling

Abstract

This article explores emotional styles of Russian maternity hospitals and their recent changes. We focus on two emotional practices that characterise different emotional styles: the Soviet-associated emotional practice of khamstvo (rudeness) and the post-Soviet neoliberal practice of smiling. Emotional styles in healthcare in Russia have been transformed under childbearing women’s consumer demands and new professional standards. However, maternity care in Russia has not been changed entirely into a neoliberal capitalist one. It is ruled by both bureaucratic paternalist (including direct state control) and consumerist logics simultaneously. The hybridisation of these logics has led to numerous problems in the coordination of institutional inconsistencies, which in turn cause emotional dissatisfaction of healthcare recipients. Doctors and midwives are expected to cope with these interactional and institutional challenges and consequences. They juggle emotional practices that refer to repertoires of different emotional styles, performing one or another according to their reading of the situation and type of patient (‘extra demanding and aggressive’, ‘miserable’, ‘ignorant and noncompliant’, ‘service-oriented’). We argue that the shift from one emotional style to another is nonlinear and leads to the appearance of a hybrid form that makes both emotional practices of khamstvo and smiling coexist in maternity care.

Birth Experience, Postpartum PTSD and Depression before and during the Pandemic of COVID-19 in Russia

“…Another possible factor is burnout of the medical professionals, which increased dramatically during the pandemic [ 31 ]. Obstetric violence, lack of ethical considerations, and poor communication remain the acute problem of the Russian maternal healthcare system [ 32 ]. Our data shows that obstetric violence is associated with higher PTSD and depression risks after delivery, which is consistent with other recent studies [ 33 ].…”

Emotional labour as a vehicle of organisational change in maternity care: The case of Russian doulas' institutional work

“…Notably, the contradictions discussed above translate into various regimes of dealing with emotions in clinical practice. Researchers distinguish two opposing emotional styles—rudeness and smiling—that dominate the organisational landscape of post‐Soviet maternity care (Temkina et al., 2021). The former style is associated with statism and bureaucratised organisational setting where physicians exercise emotional labour as a vehicle of situational control over women at birth.…”

“…Post-socialist transformations in the medical domain are typically equated with policy changes and regulatory shifts (see e.g., Cook, 2014Cook, , 2017. By investigating the caring activities of Russian doulas, I explore these changes as an affective transformation-transformation that not only materialises through changes of emotional styles in medical organisations (Temkina et al, 2021) but is actually carried out by the ground-level emotional work of institutional actors.…”

The Coming Kham and Triumphant «brutes». From the History of the Legitimation of Violence in 1917

“…практики, эмоционально и вербально подчёркивающий статус и власть. Отмечается, что хамство нередко возникает в условиях, когда акторы получают ситуативную власть над людьми, имеющими в целом более привилегированный социальный статус 73 . Как представляется, подобное заключение можно в полной мере распространить на случаи вызывающего поведения низших слоев населения в условиях революции как их своеобразного социального реванша.…”