The lady vanishes: women's work and affective labour

Recently a new twist to the emotion work/ emotional labour debate has been introduced in the shape of a conceptual device known as 'affective labour' (Hardt and Negri, 2000, 2005; Lazaratto 2004). The argument presented here suggests that there are some tragic consequences of thinking about emotion work as affective labour and in terms of immaterial labour. This is because, fundamentally, it overlooks the fact emotion work is hard and productive work that is often unrewarded and unrecognised because of its association with the domestic sphere - in effect, women disappear from view as emotional labourers.