Paper short abstract:

This paper attempts to study categories and narratives referring to emotion in a professional world. In order to do it, I will analyze a set of interview materials. The hypothesis is that such categories and narratives inform us about identities, institutional belongings and social contexts.

Paper long abstract:

Emotion is an open and heterogeneous field of analysis. During the last 40 years, psychology, biology, sociology and anthropology, among others disciplines, have tried to understand its constitution, its manifestations and its effects. As a consequence, different empirical and conceptual approaches have been developed to study emotion, in spite of the debates around its status as an object of research.

This paper hopes to go deep into the discussion about the potential of emotional dimension to study social life. In this specific case, its potential to study some features of the professional world. In order to do it, I will examine professional careers of researchers and technicians working at the National Atomic Energy Commission (Argentina) who I have interviewed during several fieldwork periods. In particular I will identify, in theirs professional careers, the categories that refer to emotion as well as the narratives about practices, situations and events enacting it. The hypothesis is that such categories and narratives, observable traces of emotion, may provide key information to understand some aspects of the social dynamics in which actors are involved. More precisely, categories and narratives may provide information about differences between generations regarding institutional belonging, different identities related to work activities and some elements of the broader contexts where both professional careers and the institution are inserted.