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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Clifton EversORCiD
This is the authors' accepted manuscript of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by Routledge, 2019.
For re-use rights please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.
Male professional freesurfers are paid to live an aspirational lifestyle and communicate this through media. In this article I argue that a ‘stoke imperative’ from the surf industry necessitates they do emotional labor. Stoke is surf vernacular for a clustering of feeling thrilled, joyful, pleased, happy, optimistic, excited, and satisfied. The surf industry manufactures and commodifies stoke to profit from it. Emotional labor is often assumed to be what women are ‘naturally’ predisposed to and ‘better at.’ It is gendered. I show how the male professional freesurfers’ emotional labor involves negotiating expectations of masculinity as they do their media work through social media and other digital technologies, such as micro-celebrity. The article attends to both a representational and a materialist networking of gendered emotional labor and micro-celebrity. A clearer understanding of what is taking place at the nexus of gender, emotional labor, and the work of sport will help to interrupt any smooth reproduction of gendered stereotypes about suitability for and unfair remuneration of roles in sport occupational settings in the ‘new economy.’
Author(s): Evers C
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Sport in Society
Year: 2019
Volume: 22
Issue: 10
Pages: 1691-1706
Online publication date: 19/03/2018
Acceptance date: 06/10/2017
Date deposited: 25/10/2017
ISSN (print): 1743-0437
ISSN (electronic): 1743-0445
Publisher: Routledge
URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2018.1441009
DOI: 10.1080/17430437.2018.1441009
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