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252 THE ISA HANDBOOK IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

1983; James, 1989). A fourth section will In recent years, a considerable and bur-
extend the argument of the second by dis- geoning literature on emotion work has
cussing the situations in which care work appeared (for a recent survey, see Bolton,
becomes exploitation. This will revolve 2005, as well as Hochschild, 2003: after-
around an analysis of necessary and surplus wards; Rastetter, 1999; Steinberg and Figart,
labour in care work. 1999). The founding text of this tradition,
The Managed Heart by Arlie Hochschild
(1983), shows how social life is regulated by
the countless acts of work performed by indi-
CARE AND LABOUR viduals in order to shape their own and
others’ emotions within the context of ‘feel-
Care is labour in the sense that in pursuit of a ing rules’. Just as acting in the theatre creates
goal it sets in motion natural forces in order an effect (suspension of disbelief, etc.), so
to act upon nature and realize a new objectiv- emotion work in everyday life is performa-
ity (Browne, 1990; Lukács, 1980). A particu- tive activity that achieves a given effect,
larity of care as labour is that the human shaping subjects’ mutual attitudes and rela-
body as a social objectivity is its instrument, tionships. The effect is a joint production, for
its material substrate and its product. This is feeling is usually a collective activity, bound
even more evident in health care, where the up with the exchange of ‘gestures or signs of
purpose of labour is the prevention and cure feeling with others’: ‘We bow to each other
of illness, the realization of wellness. The not only from the waist but from the heart.
work is inescapably material, dealing as it Feeling rules set out what is owed in gestures
does with dirt, disease and death. This activ- of exchange between people’ (Hochschild,
ity is multidimensional, combining physical, 1983: 76). Hochschild speaks of the ‘pay-
intellectual and emotional aspects (James, ment of latent dues’, but regards this basi-
1989, 1992). The multidimensional nature of cally as an essential part of the gift
care is illustrated by the way other languages, relationship in everyday life: ‘The deeper the
such as French and German, require several bond, the more central and latent the gifts
words to convey its various dimensions: exchanged, and the more often a person com-
Liebe, Sorge and Pflege in German; amour, pensates in one arena for what is lacking in
souci and soin in French. another. One way that such compensations
While care work is first and foremost body are achieved is through the medium of
work (Twigg, 2000: 137ff.), it is a specific emotional gift exchange’ (Hochschild, 1983:
form of it. As Susan Himmelweit puts it: ‘the 83–4). 2
process of caring is itself the development of a Emotion work as a joint work of produc-
relationship. The care a carer provides is basi- tion is at the heart of the production of the
cally inseparable from the relationship that is care effect. One could perform a colonoscopy
being developed with the person she is caring on someone in the same way that one investi-
for’ (Himmelweit, 1999: 29). Its hallmark is gated the pipes in a house. But it would
co-production by ‘caregivers’ and ‘users’, for scarcely count as care. At the same time,
it is a process in which production is not sep- caring for is not the same as caring about.
arate from consumption. As Julia Twigg Care does not necessarily take place within
points out: ‘It is in the dynamics of the care relationships of love or friendship. Indeed,
encounter that the nature of what is produced recipients of care interviewed by Francine
is defined; production and consumption col- Saillant described their professional care-
lapse into one another. [...] [U]sers and work- givers as ‘friends’, but ‘not friends like their
ers are co–producers of care’ (Twigg, 2000: 1, other friends’ (Saillant, 2001). Often, the
121; also see Baldock, 1997: 83). Dialogue is relationship of care brings together strangers
an essential dimension of care. in situations of great intimacy, in which