Guiding Emotions: Defining humane interspecies emotional labour performed by guide dogs and instructors with and for each other during their shared work-lives.

Abstract

Learning and practicing the skill of managing emotion displays is an essential component of a guide dog's education. Simultaneously, teaching guide dogs to do so requires significant emotion management on behalf of instructors - often creating enmeshed dynamics and performances between the two. Existing literature has only recently begun to acknowledge interspecies emotional labour. That which guide dogs and their instructors perform with and for each other has gone unaddressed. Interspecies emotional labour and the strategies used to perform it impact how humane an emotional labour episode is for performers. This has also not yet received much academic attention as it pertains to multispecies workspaces. This thesis speaks to these gaps within animal labour studies and emotion management studies by answering: what defines humane interspecies emotional labour performed by guide dogs and their instructors with and for each other during their shared work-lives? Pillars of the shared work-lives of guide dogs and their instructors that impact humane interspecies emotional labour experiences are identified, within the timeframe from a guide dog’s advanced education until the end of class. As part of a patchwork ethnography, 28 semi-structured and open- ended interviews with 26 interlocutors at Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind were conducted over Zoom. A six-year autoethnography based on data collected in Germany prior to this research brought additional insight. Findings identify that guide dogs and instructors learn to perform varying levels of emotional labour with and for each other throughout a guide dog's education. To do so, they utilise different strategies, such as deep or surface acting. However, interspecies emotional labour can be challenging for both species, with outcomes on a continuum from humane to inhumane. This thesis' original contribution to knowledge is the definition of humane interspecies emotional labour that guide dogs and their instructors perform with and for each other.