Emotional Intelligence: Elias, Foucault, and the Reflexive Emotional Self

Authors

  • Jason Hughes Brunel University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22439/fs.v0i8.2942

Abstract

Over the last decade and a half there has emerged growing interest in the concept of “emotional intelligence” (henceforth EI), particularly within literature relating to occupational psychology, leadership, human resource management, and training. This paper considers the rise of EI as a managerial discourse and seeks to make sense of it, first in relation to existing accounts of emotion at work, and subsequently through utilising the analytical possibilities presented by the work of Norbert Elias and Michel Foucault. The case of EI is employed here as a concrete empirical site within which to explore potential complementarities between the analyses of Elias and Foucault, in particular around Elias’s arguments concerning the changing character of the social constraint towards self restraint, and Foucault’s discussion of power/knowledge and governmentality. EI is found to enshrine a more general move towards greater emotional possibility and discretion both within the workplace and beyond — an ostensible emancipation of emotions from corporate attempts to script the management and display of employee feelings. However, it is argued that rather than offering a simple liberation of our emotional selves, EI presents demands for a heightened emotional reflexivity concerning what is emotionally appropriate at work and beyond. As such, EI involves both greater emotional “freedom” plus a proliferation of new modalities of emotional control, albeit based now on the expression of feelings as much as their repression. Ultimately, these seemingly paradoxical aspects of EI serve to highlight an important point of inter-section in the work of Elias and Foucault around their conceptualisations of power, selfhood, and the shifting character of social control.

Author Biography

Jason Hughes, Brunel University

Dr. Jason Hughes is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology & Communications in Brunel University, London, UK. He has, together with Eric Dunning, University of Leicester, UK, recently completed a manuscript on the sociology of Norbert Elias for Polity Press, which includes a critical comparison of the work of Foucault and Elias. His current research interests relate to four overlapping areas: the sociology of emotions; the sociology of the body and health; sociological theory; and organizational sociology. More specifically, he is interested in: emotional reflexivity in the “new” workplace; emotional labor and aesthetic labor; new managerial discourses, particularly emotional intelligence, high performance work practices, knowledge management, and organizational learning; risk and leisure commodities (particularly tobacco); addiction; figurational sociology; and communities of practice.

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Published

2010-02-01

How to Cite

Hughes, J. (2010). Emotional Intelligence: Elias, Foucault, and the Reflexive Emotional Self. Foucault Studies, (8), 28–52. https://doi.org/10.22439/fs.v0i8.2942

Issue

Section

Special Section on Michel Foucault and Norbert Elias