Beyond Surface Level: An Interview with Renee Middlemost

In an interview, Kate Bowles invited Renee Middlemost to explore her responsibilities, roles and challenges as Head of Students for the Arts and Communications and Media. Kate was the facilitator of the interview and enabled Renee to engage in the narrative practice of storytelling. Through this process, she externalises her own experience and highlights her values and preferred way of living. As an audience member to the interview, I could engage in Maggie Carrey and Shona Russell's theory of 'Outsider Witnessing'. Renee's use of storytelling also revealed elements of Micheal White's 'The absent but Implicit' theory and her engagement in Arlie Hoschild's concept of 'Emotional Labour' in her professional career.

The Absent but Implicit

White's theory of 'the absent but implicit', invites the audience to explore how every expression of life is in relation to something else (White, 2006). During the interview, Kate asked Renee to recall a situation that brings emotions of stress. In doing so, Renee could expose her preferred way of living by reflecting upon the value that was absent and understanding the opposite of the absent, being the implicit. For Renee, stress arises from situations of confrontation, as she described them as "incredibly challenging". Through the lens of outsider witnessing, when discussing her fear of confrontation, Renee frequently broke eye contact. She sheltered her face, emphasising how this fear brings genuine stress even to think about. Through re-membering one situation, I engaged in double listening as an audience member, understanding both the problem and the preferred option (Carey, Walther & Russell, 2009). Renee felt stressed when faced with situations that require "confrontation style interventions", as she described it, as the absent value is control and the implicit being managing a situation. This allowed me to understand that Renee's preferred way of living is controlling situations so that issues within her work do not escalate, resulting in confrontation. Renee further associates loss of control with letting her students down, which she places as a core value within her career, as she says, "I don't like disappointing students, especially when I know they have tried hard or that something has gone wrong when it is no fault of their own". Renee prefers to control aspects of her life to reduce opportunities for confrontation and disappoint her students when issues arise that she could not have predicted or managed more effectively.

Emotional Labour

The concept of 'Emotional Labour' was developed by Hochschild in 1983 and related to the expectation that individuals must display specific emotions, regardless of personal feelings within a professional setting (Hochschild, 2002). Renee's role as Head of Students at UOW. As Renee's job is to support students, there is an expectation of empathy, sympathy and overall understanding that students seek and expect, making emotional capability a workplace asset for Renee. Due to her position, Renee must maintain professionalism when managing students' issues and accounting for their emotions. Renee engaged in self-disclosure within the interview when she said, "A really valuable part of my job is just almost holding the student's hand and saying 'you don't have to do this alone'". This moment in the interview presented the emotions that Renee must experience in her job. When students come forth with issues, she must be empathetic and understanding. However, this simple statement further reveals Renee's values of kindness and helping those in need, and the way that despite maintaining a professional image, she almost wants to hold their hand, suggesting that she wants to lead them to a successful outcome.

Outsider Witnessing

Kate acted as both the facilitator and engaged in outsider witnessing. She did this by focusing on keywords that Renee used in her response to questions and challenged her to think deeply about the meaning behind her word choices and phrases (Carey & Russell, 2003). This allowed Kate to understand better the nature of Renee's role, thoughts, feelings and values. Kate's responses invited Renee to resurrect or generate alternative stories of her work and role by deconstructing her stories (Carey & Russell, 2003). For example, as Kate asked Renee to recall a part of her work life that inflicts stress, Kate honed in on Renee's response of wanting to help students not feel isolated when struggling with their problems. Kate then asked Renee to describe a word for this action, and "normalising" was the word that emerged as Renee was given time to think and talk us through her thought process. Outsider witnessing allowed Kate to respond to Renee with curiosity to develop alternative stories and ask questions that provided developments that contributed to us receiving a rich description of Renee's identity both inside and outside of her work life. Kate utilised Michael White's (2002) 'map of outsider witnessing practice' within her responses, such as identifying the expression, which is when Kate focused on Renee's expression, "feel okay about themselves". Kate could describe the image that Renee explored in her narratives with University students feeling under pressure, overwhelmed and isolated.

The interview with Renee utilised the narrative practices we have looked through this semester of outsider witnessing, the concept of emotional labour and the absent but implicit. These concepts were all explored during this interview as by analysing the language, both verbal and nonverbal, by Renee, as an audience member, I was able to understand her values as a person, which was further heightened by Kate's facilitating of the interview and asking questions to Renee that required deep thinking and reflection. This interview enabled me to understand how we can learn a lot about someone else's preferences in life by listening to the way they describe situations, using certain expressions and language, and allowing time for a person to think and respond instead of interrupting or "filling in the gaps" and making assumptions.

REFERENCES

Carey, M. and Russell, S., 2003. Outsider-witness practices: Some answers to commonly asked questions. Dulwich Centre.

Hochschild, A., 2002. Emotional labour. Gender: A sociological reader, pp.192-6.

White, M., 2002. Addressing personal failure. International Journal of Narrative Therapy & Community Work, 2002(3), pp.33-76.