The Epistemic Value of Service User Anger: Cultural Repertoires of Anger and Their Implications for Social Work

Feminist scholarship has highlighted that emotions are not innocently subjective, but social and political, calling attention to the ways in which the anger of oppressed groups has historically been discredited. Further, scholars have criticized the historical opposition of reason and emotion and recognized the uses of anger in opposition movements and social change efforts. Building on feminist scholarship on emotions, this article contributes to the study of how emotions are constructed in social work, particularly in terms of the epistemic potential of service user anger for social work. Based on an empirical analysis of focus groups with 64 frontline workers, the following research question is examined: What cultural repertoires do frontline workers apply to understand service user anger? Four cultural repertoires are identified: strategic, therapeutic, social contextual, and administrative justice. The article discusses how these four cultural repertoires can be used to connect anger to different forms of knowledge, highlighting the implications of repertoire type in understanding the epistemic potential of service user anger. The article discusses potential consequences of applying each cultural repertoire and cautions against allowing demands of emotional control prevail in social work. Further, it highlights reflexivity about the construction of emotions in social work and how the social position of the service user matters for these constructions as a critical competence in social work.