Professional emotional neutrality and the role of background emotion work in the slaughterhouse

Abstract While most people in Western societies see themselves as emotionally incapable of slaughtering animals, slaughterhouse workers are involved in the killing of animals on a daily basis. This article analyzes how slaughterhouse workers perform emotion work in the context of slaughtering animals. The empirical study, based on 13 semi-structured interviews carried out with German slaughterhouse workers, shows that the successful use of emotion management techniques leads to professional emotional distance towards the act of killing. For the slaughterers interviewed, being emotionally unaffected by killing animals was the result of background emotion work, which was an expression of a professional emotional habitus. Only in rare cases, when disruptive emotions interrupted the familiar routines during work, was the underlying emotion work foregrounded and thus consciously experienced and reflected upon. The article contributes to research on slaughterhouse work by systematically analyzing emotion work techniques used by slaughterers. It is innovative in that it introduces the theoretical approach of background and foreground emotions in workplaces that require professional neutrality to the study of slaughterhouse work. It shows that background emotion work is an essential prerequisite for slaughterhouse work and invites further research on background emotion work in morally tainted jobs. The paper makes an innovative contribution to the theory and research on the sociology of emotions and emotion work, the sociology of human–animal relations, and the sociology of agriculture and food.