Holding So Much Fear and Pain

Emotional labour (EL) – the regulation of feelings in work interactions – plays a central role in practices of civil society organisations, particularly in such areas as social justice, activism and political education. According to Hochschild, this kind of labour requires evoking or suppressing feelings in order to fulfil the requirements of the work environment. The article examines how civil society actors in Germany who are active in the field of diversity employ EL to mobilise their work while dealing with increasing right-wing threats against it. The article illustrates that in times of political, societal and affective polarisation, the need for EL increases in this field and points out different types of EL in dealing with it. Methodologically, the article generates qualitative types based on coding processes following the grounded theory method (GTM). The different types of EL consist of the following: (1) developing a fighting spirit and arming oneself emotionally; (2) hoping to be unseen and going back into the ‘bubble’; and (3) holding the fear and pain of others. The data show that civil society actors perform EL in addition to their everyday work, which requires more emotional resources, which is how civil society actors frame the additionally needed resources themselves. As a consequence, this leads to a collective feeling of exhaustion within parts of German civil society. In this way, the findings of this article contribute to the theorisation of the role of emotions in civil society’s commitments and open new perspectives on EL in times of polarisation.