SEMINAR SERIES - EMOTIONS AT WORK: PRACTICES, CULTURES, TRANSFORMATIONS

In recent decades, economic, organizational, and cultural transformations have profoundly reshaped work and its forms of subjective and collective experience. Alongside the growing managerialization of organizations, the spread of digital technologies, and sociodemographic changes (ageing, feminization, and the diversification of professional trajectories), there has been a renewed attention to the relational and affective dimensions of work. The so-called affective turn in the social sciences has brought to the center the role of emotions as social constructions and as structural components of work practices. In multiple professional domains – from care work to education, from public services to the third sector, as well as in technical and creative fields – the expression, management, and regulation of emotions have become integral to professional performance and identity. At the same time, emotions offer a privileged lens through which to examine identities, power relations, organizational cultures, and the broader transformations of contemporary work. With the aim of fostering an empirically grounded and interdisciplinary dialogue on these issues (including in sectors beyond health and social care), we are proposing a cycle of 4 online seminars, to be held between March and May 2026. The seminars is organized around 2 deeply interconnected thematic axes: 1. Emotions, Professional Practices, and Organizational Cultures; 2. Well–being, Identity, and Emotional Justice in Contemporary Workplaces