Development practitioners’ emotions for resilience: sources of reflective and transformative practices

Abstract

Emotions are rarely discussed in development due to concerns about professionalism or rationalism in the sector. This research explores emotions that practitioners experience and the roles of emotions in their resilience by drawing on Bourdieu’s practice theory to conceptualise emotions as resources to be embraced rather than something to be managed and controlled. Interviews with 13 Korean non-government organisation workers showed that practitioners’ emotions were influenced by religion and social conditions, and their emotions influenced their development practices and relationships with self and others. The findings highlight that emotions can promote practitioners’ reflective and transformative practices, helping practitioners build resilience. Resilience has been described as a process of deconstructing and reconstructing conditions of existence and assumptions of self and practice. This research points to the need to develop a community of practice that connects and supports development practitioners to facilitate changes.

Keywords:

• Emotion
• resilience
• reflection
• transformation
• a community of practice
• NGO

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Core University Program for Korean Studies through the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the Korean Studies Promotion Service of the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS-2020-OLU-20200039).

Notes on contributors

Jae-Eun Noh

Jae-Eun Noh is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Western Australia. Her research has explored development practices from human rights perspectives and contextualisation of development discourses. Her recent publications examined global citizenship, non-profit fundraising, corporate accountability, international field work, and helping professionals’ health and well-being. Her research and publications are influenced by five years of experience working for development NGOs in Korea and Bangladesh.