TEACHING WHILE BLACK: NAVIGATING EMOTIONAL LABOR AND THE WHITE WATERS OF ACADEMIA

Abstract

In this qualitative study, I examine the experiences of eight self-identified Black graduate teaching assistants (BGTAs) engaged in racialized emotional labor while teaching at a historically white institution (HWI). University instructors engage in emotional labor and other caring work, which requires managing their own emotions as well as those of students (Bellas, 1999; Hochschild, 1983). It is invisible labor that often goes uncompensated and unnoticed. Understanding how white institutions shape organizational emotional display rules, which guide the emotional labor required of people color, illuminates the ways in which BGTAs navigate and negotiate this labor. Using the theoretical frameworks of emotional labor (the process and labor required by individuals to manage, reduce, and/suppress felt emotions in order to align with organization expectations), Critical Race Theory (CRT), white racial frame , and Hypervisibility I argue that emotional labor is occurring in both the instructor work position, but also in the BGTAs’ roles as students. I also argue that emotional labor is also happening based on social identity characteristics which influences interactions and the extent one can show up authentically. Thus, this dissertation qualitatively examines through in-depth interviews and audio diaries, the racialized nature of Black GTAs emotional labor while teaching at historically white institutions (HWI). How do they negotiate this labor, and how is emotional labor shaped by white institutional spaces to create a challenging working and learning environment where BGTAS are required to navigate racialized narratives and ideologies, while trying to successfully perform and fulfill their duties as instructors and graduate students. The findings demonstrate the current expectations of emotional labor in higher education institutions are due to racialized institutional structures that benefit whites at the expense of Black and other people of color (POC). They also demonstrate how racialized emotional labor is a required process to navigate interactions with others in higher education. They show the unequal burden of racialized emotional labor and hypervisibility due to constant negotiation of being underrepresented in higher education, everyday racial incidents (i.e. microaggressions), and dominant white ideologies that deny the realities of race and racism experienced by people of color. Also, the findings reveal the ways in which BGTAs were able to find ways of responding to racial incidents that protected them from emotional injury and exhaustion and promoted counter narratives. Lastly, the findings showed how BGTAs found ways of resisting dominant white racially framed emotion rules and expressing genuine felt emotions. Understanding the multilayered and nuanced process of negotiating racialized emotional labor of BGTAs allowed me to examine racist systemic structures in higher education. It also afforded a deeper understanding of the significance of social positioning and its connection to preconceived assumptions about people of color that shape interactions that required emotional labor.