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Mutual Emotional Labor As Method: Building Connections Of Care In Qualitative Research, Jill A. Fisher, Torin Monahan Nov 2023

Mutual Emotional Labor As Method: Building Connections Of Care In Qualitative Research, Jill A. Fisher, Torin Monahan

The Qualitative Report

Emotional labor may be vital to the success of qualitative research studies, particularly longitudinal studies that depend on the maintenance of research relationships over time. Rather than being limited to the comportment of researchers toward their participants, however, we find that participants also actively engage in practices of emotional labor to manage researchers and guide research interactions. We document elements of such “mutual emotional labor” in the establishment of rapport, in crafting experiences of personalized therapeutic benefit from participating in interviews, and in efforts to navigate closure at the conclusion of research projects. We argue that by recognizing forms of …


Reaction To Safety Equipment Technology In The Workplace And Implications: A Study Of The Firefighter’S Hood, Brian W. Ward Dec 2017

Reaction To Safety Equipment Technology In The Workplace And Implications: A Study Of The Firefighter’S Hood, Brian W. Ward

The Qualitative Report

In the 1990s the firefighter’s hood became a standard article of safety equipment worn by municipal firefighters, eliciting a negative reaction among many of these firefighters. I used data from interviews with 42 firefighters to explain why this reaction occurred. Data analysis revealed that negative reactions ultimately stemmed from the hood’s disruption of autonomy, repudiation of the complex mental and physical skill needed to perform tasks required of firefighters, and hindrance in negotiating the life-threatening environment created by a fire. These findings indicate that when introducing new safety equipment technology to emergency response workers, their reaction to this equipment, and …