Racialised Emotional Labour in a Swedish Welfare Organisational Context: Towards a Conceptual Understanding

Abstract

Racial inequalities in public-sector organisations have gained more traction in recent years while, at the same time, the sociological concept of emotional labour has become more prominent in understanding workers' performance and feelings. However, little research exists that is problematising emotional labour among racialised workers in public organisations, especially in the Swedish context. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel conceptual understanding of the emotional labour of welfare workers racialised as non-white in the Swedish context. Drawing from interdisciplinary perspectives, including sociology, psychology and organisational behaviour, this paper synthesises the existing literature and integrates emerging research to conceptualise how emotional labour can look like for racialised workers in Swedish welfare organisations and beyond. This conceptualisation, in the form of a typology, addresses the aspects of emotional suppression in response to micro-aggressions and discriminations, professional masking in the face of white professionalism, racial masking to adjust to an organisational culture functioning under both white normativity and colour-blindness, as well as the emotional burden which the expectation of racial representation puts on racialised workers. Through the proposed typology of racialised emotional labour in welfare organisations, this paper contributes to the body of research in public administration that is addressing ethnic and racial inequality in public organisations.