Lessons from the dark side: Emotional labour and positioning in cross-sectoral collaborations

Collaboration across disciplines and stakeholders is important in handling complex societal problems. Even if collaborating is acknowledged as contributing toward societal change and innovation, collaborators’ emotional experiences during development, consolidation and completion of a given project are underexplored. This article discusses emotional labour in three cross-sectoral collaborations using participatory observations and interviews. It analyses the potentials and pitfalls of focusing on emotional labour that foregrounds collaboration as a dynamic that changes with the development phases of a project trajectory. The study finds that rendering interpersonal dynamics visible may both be a way to gain authority and legitimization in the collaboration but can also be used as a strategy to marginalise others. On the other hand, maintaining the invisibility of emotional labour can also be an expression of power. The obscurity of these complex dynamics makes it difficult to navigate and propose what makes a good collaboration. The paper aims to contribute, from a practitioner-oriented and theoretical vantage point to a more reflexive and sustainable practice and nuanced understandings of collaborative practices in research and at an institutional level, particularly in the field of social change and innovation.