Unforeseen emotional labour: a collaborative autoethnography exploring researcher experiences of studying long COVID in health workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

MacIver, Emma; Adams, Nicholas Norman; Torrance, Nicola; Douglas, Flora; Kennedy, Catriona; Skatun, Diane; Santiago, Virginia Hernandez; Grant, Aileen

Abstract

The concept of "emotional labour" describes the regulation of feelings and expressions to fulfil a specific job role, discussed extensively in relation to commercial and caring professions, with more recent scholarship recognising the emotional role performed by qualitative researchers. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this role was likely further heightened due to changes in the socio-political context affecting both individual circumstances and research practice. Despite this, accounts of emotional labour performed by qualitative researchers during this time are lacking. This paper presents a collaborative, autoethnographic account reflecting on the emotional labour experiences of a small team of researchers working on a highly emotive and often distressing study. This longitudinal, mixed methods study: "Long COVID in Health Workers" (LoCH), investigated the lived experiences of healthcare workers from across Scotland, living with the long-term impacts of COVID-19 or Long COVID. Remote interviews were used to explore their experiences in relation to work, their personal and home lives, and coping mechanisms. Collectively, various factors served to construct and intensify our emotional labour experiences: the novelty of Long COVID; its devastating, unpredictable nature and impacts; and a web of factors pertaining to the socio-political context at the time. National lockdowns, enforced social-distancing, homeworking and inaccessibility of NHS services meant a lack of formal and informal support for participants. This heightened their willingness to share highly personal, emotional and often distressing experiences during interviews, with participants often suggesting researchers fulfilled an emotional support role - conseqentially, the usual defined research parameters became blurred. Reactively, researchers engaged in lengthy, ongoing processes in order to negotiate unintended and unforeseen levels of emotional labour, so that they could continue to collect data and remain "professional" during interviews. This was challenging to negotiate in an already difficult homeworking and lockdown climate, with researchers having their own workplace and personal challenges, concerns and responsibilities to balance, in addition to their new and unplanned emotional role. This context also dictated the use of remote methods for both data-gathering and interacting with colleagues, which impeded our ability to provide and receive support. Emotional labour needs to be recognised and acknowledged, and formal plans need to be put in place to support researchers across individual, research team and institutional levels, with critical consideration of socio-political influences at the time of study - an area which merits further consideration. This paper firstly outlines the context for the unforeseen emotional labour borne by the researchers while conducting the LoCH study during the COVID-19 pandemic, before drawing on the collected data to discuss researchers' experiences, and the strategies they employed to cope during and after interviews. Goffman's dramaturgical perspective is employed as a lens to make sense of researcher experience, and to highlight challenges with managing and maintaining professional and emotionally-neutral presentation of self during interviews. The emotional costs of such presentations are explored through emotional vignettes from the researchers. The paper also discusses implications for future research, with regards to managing difficult subject matter in challenging conditions, and mechanisms for coping, emotional management and successful project delivery. Outcomes are relevant to future studies in this subject area, and help to draw attention to and normalise discussions of researcher wellbeing and unanticipated role-pressures.

Citation

MACIVER, E., ADAMS, N.N., TORRANCE, N., DOUGLAS, F., KENNEDY, C., SKATUN, D., SANTIAGO, V.H. and GRANT, A. 2024. Unforeseen emotional labour: a collaborative autoethnography exploring researcher experiences of studying long COVID in health workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. SSM - qualitative research in health [online], 5, article 100390. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmqr.2023.100390

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 22, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Dec 28, 2023
• Publication Date: Jun 30, 2024
• Deposit Date: Mar 1, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 8, 2024
• Journal: SSM - qualitative research in health
• Print ISSN: 2667-3215
• Electronic ISSN: 2667-3215
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 5
• Article Number: 100390
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmqr.2023.100390
• Keywords: Emotional labour; Goffman's dramaturgy; Qualitative research; Long COVID; COVID-19; Collaborative autoethnography; Emotion management
• Public URL: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1898295