Title: Harnessing emotion: the haptic and acoustic professionalism of guide dogs

Authors: Tiamat Warda

Addresses: Faculty of Social Sciences, The Multidimensional Tourism Institute (MTI), University of Lapland, Yliopistonkatu 8, 96300 Rovaniemi, Finland

Abstract: Guide dogs are expected to guide vision impaired humans in a professional manner, whereby their emotion displays are calm and confident. To do so successfully, they perform emotional labour by continuously managing their emotion displays. Emotional labour efforts that construct a professional demeanour can be visually appreciated in multispecies workplaces. However, emotional labour outcomes of guide dogs can be received haptically and acoustically - of particular importance for the vision impaired humans they live and work with. This paper's outcomes are based on data collected through a patchwork ethnography spanning nine years. It presents the role that physical touch, equipment, and sound can play as emotional labour outcomes performed by guide dogs. In doing so, it deepens existing interspecies emotional labour discourse by introducing a more nuanced understanding of emotional labour performed by individuals of other species, as well as how this can be received by vision impaired humans.

Keywords: guide dogs; emotional labour; interspecies emotional labour; harness; GDMI; emotion management; emotion displays; animal organisation; interspecies work; assistance dog.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWOE.2025.150228

International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion, 2025 Vol.16 No.4, pp.400 - 420

Received: 04 Feb 2024
Accepted: 23 Jan 2025
Published online: 04 Dec 2025 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article