“How you keep going”: Voluntary sector practitioners' story-lines as emotion work

Quinn, Kaitlyn; Tomczak, Philippa; Buck, Gillian

Abstract

The voluntary sector acts as the last line of defense for some of the most marginalized people in societies around the world, yet its capacities are significantly reduced by chronic resource shortages and dynamic political obstacles. Existing research has scarcely examined what it is like for voluntary sector practitioners working amidst these conditions. In this paper, we explore how penal voluntary sector practitioners across England and Scotland marshaled their personal and professional resources to “keep going” amidst significant challenges. Our analysis combines symbolic interactionism with the concept of story-lines. We illuminate the narratives that practitioners mobilized to understand and motivate their efforts amidst the significant barriers, chronic limitations, and difficult emotions brought forth by their work. We position practitioners' story-lines as a form of emotion work that mitigated their experiences of anger, frustration, overwhelm, sadness, and disappointment, enabling them to move forward and continue to support criminalized individuals. Our analysis details three story-lines—resignation, strategy, and refuge—and examines their consequences for practitioners and their capacities to intervene in wicked social problems.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 6, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Jan 16, 2022
• Publication Date: Mar 1, 2022
• Deposit Date: Feb 23, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 17, 2024
• Journal: British Journal of Sociology
• Print ISSN: 0007-1315
• Electronic ISSN: 1468-4446
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 73
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 370-386
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12914
• Keywords: Sociology and Political Science
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/7505207
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-4446.12914
• Additional Information: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Quinn, K., Tomczak, P., & Buck, G. (2022). “How you keep going”: Voluntary sector practitioners' story-lines as emotion work. The British Journal of Sociology, 73, 370– 386, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12914. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. This article may not be enhanced, enriched or otherwise transformed into a derivative work, without express permission from Wiley or by statutory rights under applicable legislation. Copyright notices must not be removed, obscured or modified. The article must be linked to Wiley’s version of record on Wiley Online Library and any embedding, framing or otherwise making available the article or pages thereof by third parties from platforms, services and websites other than Wiley Online Library must be prohibited