Emotion Seminar at Gothenburg University (EMOGU)

EMOGU Seminarier 2026

Alla seminarier hålls på engelska om inte annat anges. Om du planerar att delta online, kontakta arrangören. 

Schema (på engelska)

This semester, the EMOGU group is trying a more diverse seminar format, where standard work-in-progress seminars and research presentations alternate with article reading seminars and book reading clubs. The thematic focus throughout the semester will be anger. Please note that the seminars will be held in various locations.

Friday 13 February, 13.15–15.00, Room F417

Work-in-progress seminar
The seminar is hybrid.

Presenter: Johanna Finnholm, PhD Candidate, Dept. of Sociology and Work Science. University of Gothenburg

Title: Balancing Caring, Controlling, and Belonging: An Emotion Management Perspective on HR Practitioners’ Work

Abstract
Research on the work of HR practitioners has long emphasized enduring tensions, often using paradox theory and stakeholder perspectives. However, emotional aspects of these tensions have received less attention. This paper addresses this gap by examining how HR practitioners manage such tensions through emotion work in their interactions with managers.

The empirical material was collected in a Swedish state agency, focusing on HR involvement in planned organizational change. The analysis identifies three types of HR work and, drawing on Hochschild’s concepts of value frames and feeling rules, conceptualizes these as three value frames guiding HR practitioners’ work: caring, controlling, and belonging. 

The findings describe feeling rules that shape HR work within each value frame. Owing to the devolved nature of HRM responsibilities and the long-term relationships with line managers, HR practitioners rely on being seen as trustworthy and supportive. This work calls for emotional skills and the ability to move between value frames while remaining perceived as authentic. Thus, HR practitioners must use emotional reflexivity to choose which value frame and feeling rules fit each situation and balance this emotion work with awareness of how managers perceive these efforts. The paper shows that emotional skills are central to managing tensions in HR practitioners’ work.

Keywords: Value frames, Feeling rules, Emotional reflexivity, HR practitioners, HR work, Tensions, HRM devolvement

Friday 13 March, 13.15–15.00, Stora Skansen

Work-in-progress seminar/research presentation
The seminar is hybrid.

Presenter: Nina Margies, Lecturer, Chair of Urban and Regional Sociology, Humboldt University zu Berlin

Title: Shame and Dis/Trust: The Bodycam in Firefighters’ Relational Work

Abstract
This presentation examines how the introduction of body-worn cameras in the fire service influences the relational work between firefighters and the public. Through ethnographic fieldwork in Berlin – accompanying firefighters during their shifts and interviewing firefighters, social workers, and citizens – the study explores the ways in which bodycams affect moments of vulnerability, shame, and trust.

Firefighters are often the first to encounter people in highly exposed, sometimes humiliating situations – during medical crises, mental health emergencies, or states of (severe) poverty. The visible presence of a camera – whether filming or not – can evoke uncertainty about control over one’s image and data and consequently produce feelings of shame, fear, and resistance among those receiving help.

The findings suggest that this transforms the firefighter’s role from helper to potential surveillant and may risk undermining the emotional foundations of trust in the fire service as a neutral and caring institution, aligning it instead with policing and control.

Wedensday 25 March, 12:00–13:00, Rosa Rummet (the ’pink’ room at Socav)

Book reading club 1: Anger, shame, and humiliation in macro conflict

We read and discuss two book chapters: Scheff, Thomas J. (1994) Bloody Revenge: Emotions, Nationalism and War. iUniverse. Chapter 5.

Barnhart, Jocelyn T. (2020) The Consequences of Humiliation: Anger and Status in World Politics. Cornell University Press. Chapter 1 + Introduction.

Friday 17 April, 13:15–15:00, Lilla Skansen

Article reading seminar on the theme of anger

The seminar is hybrid.

Jane Pettersson, Karl Malmqvist, and Åsa Wettergren each present an article they have read on the topic of anger. Presentations are followed by general discussion. The articles will be circulated a week in advance and everyone who joins is welcome to read and take part in discussions around them.

Friday 8 May, 10.15–12.00, Online Seminar

Presenter: Ryan Switzer, Post-doctoral researcher, University of Copenhagen

Title: The Algorithmic Grammars of Anger in the United States: Translations of Rage Between the Production and Consumption of Far-Right Content

Abstract
The global digital media ecology has birthed a new right culture. An international network of grassroots activists has capitalized on the structurally gendered and racialized affordances of social industry platforms in their intertwined pursuit of profit and power. These platforms have facilitated the creations of a network of influencers who mobilize gendered appeals to recruit and legitimize their movements. Comprehending the reach and emotional appeal of the far right’s gendered ideology requires anthropologically studying these circuits of affect online and off. This project will study the concert of the far right's content’s production and consumption. 

As a Postdoctoral Researcher with the ERC Project Anger Legitimised, I plan to ethnographically observe how U.S. American far right influencers produce content within the affordances of social industry algorithms and how gendered appeals are strategically tailored to target young people. I will then take the innovative approach of also observing the consumption of this content by its target audience, conducting fieldwork at two large universities in the United States. This process of translation reveals how digital political ecologies facilitate mobilizing emotion; how anger is incentivized, legitimized, and learned. By ethnographically observing both the production and consumption of this content I aim to answer the following questions:

1.) How do U.S. far-right influencers produce and adapt gendered rhetoric to fit, what they understand to be, the affordances of social media algorithms?

2.) How do the gendered and racialized affordances of platforms shape the emotional political messaging of far-right influencers targeting young audiences?

3.) How do young people in the U.S. engage with and emotionally respond to this content? How does this engagement shape their political and gendered identities?

Wedensday 27 May, 13.15–15.00, Room F417

Joint seminar with Allmänna seminariet on the topic of anger.

The seminar is hybrid.

Presenter: Merete Monrad, Aalborg University & Betül Özkaya, Aalborg University

Title: Emotional practices in youth: (in)appropriate anger and emotional complexity of cross-field navigation

Abstract: This article explores anger among young people with a focus on norms for appropriate anger across social fields. Based on an empirical study of 40 interviews and 30 diaries, the article shows how the dominant norms of anger expression, which emphasise emotional control and verbal expression, contrast with the norms in specific youth subcultures. The findings show that some young people navigate environments with homogeneous expectations for emotional expression, whereas others deal with heterogeneous or conflicting norms across social spaces. Those who navigate across different social contexts with conflicting norms for appropriate expression of anger requires emotional resources to express anger in contextually legitimate ways. Based on the analysis, we discuss the emotional complexity for youth navigating environments with diverging norms for anger expression by engaging with the notions of emotional practices, emotional reflexivity, emotional habitus, and emotional capital. The article also highlights the resources that disadvantaged youth possess when navigating emotional environments with diverging norms.

Friday 29 May, 12.00–13.00, Rosa Rummet (the ’pink room’ at Socav)

Book reading club 2: Anger as a constructive political emotion

We read and discuss two book chapters:

Cherry, Myisha (2021) The Case for Rage: Why Anger is Essential to Anti-Racist Struggle. Oxford University Press. Chapter 1. 

Lorde, Audre (1997[1981]) ’The Uses of Anger.’ Originally published in Moranga, Cherrié & Anzaldúa, Gloria E. (eds.) (1981) This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. Persephone Press. Reprinted in Women’s Studies Quarterly 25(1/2): 278–285.