Digital Labour is Emotional Labour

This chapter argues that only by articulating the affective, emotional dimensions of digital work in museums and heritage organisations is it possible to develop a richer understanding of the role and importance of technology within sites of cultural history, cultural production, and cultural consumption. It explains how there has only been minimal attention given to the affective and emotional dimensions of digital work within these settings. Aligned with feminist thinkers such as Donna Haraway, it argues that the emotional aspects of digital work have been largely overlooked, noticeable only in the margins of daily activity and, on occasion, understood as a more “feminine” characteristic of digital work, less worthy of explication. This chapter focuses on the transformative possibilities of emotional work undertaken by digital staff working for museums across a range of international settings. It maintains that people, technology, and museums are a constitutive tripartite, in which each component is as necessary as the other in the effort to create truly progressive cultural institutions. This chapter shows how digital staff in museums are also innovation champions, required to undertake emotional labour whilst promoting digital transformation and change.

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