Arlie Russell Hochschild

In 2021 she was elected to the American Philosophical Society. As well, she is a member of various other sociological societies; such as the American Sociological Association, the American Gerontological Society, the Sociological Research Association, the Sociologists for Women in Society, the and American Federation of Teachers.

Hochschild has received eight Honorary Doctoral Degrees from, respectively, Harvard University, 2021, Swarthmore College, 1993, Aalborg University, 2004 (Denmark), the University of Oslo, 2000, (Norway), the University of Lapland, 2012, (Finland), Mount St. Vincent University, 2013 (Canada), Westminster College (Pennsylvania), 2018 (U.S.) and University of Lausanne, 2018 (Switzerland). She also received the Ulysses Medal from University College Dublin, 2015 Ireland, and was elected to the American Philosophical Society, 2021.

Her latest book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, is based on five years of immersion research among Louisiana supporters of the Tea Party. It explores the role of emotion in politics by first posing a paradox. Why she asks, do residents of the nation's second poorest state vote for candidates who resist federal help? Why in a highly polluted state, do they vote for politicians reluctant to regulate polluting industries? Her search for answers leads her to the concept of the "deep story." A deep story is a story that feels true about a highly salient feature of life. One takes facts out of a deep story. One takes moral precepts out of the deep story. What remains is simply what feels true about a highly salient issue, and can be described through a metaphor, as the experience of "waiting in line" for a valued reward, and witnessing unwelcome "line-cutters." Everyone, she argues, has a deep story—and for many on the right, it reflects a keen sense of decline, the sting of scorn, and the sense of being a stranger in one's land. In a 2020 OpEd for The Guardian, she proposes the concept of "emotional strategy"—a strategy of focusing primarily on emotion—which many politicians pursue as a minor part of an overall strategy, and others pursue as a central project. She has added other "chapters" to the deep story that have occurred since 2016, which she relates in an interview Derik Thompson conducted with her in "The Deep Story of Trumpism" for the Atlantic Monthly. She's suggested other ideas on politics through OpEds and book reviews.

Hochschild was a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award for Strangers In Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right and the book was a New York Times Bestseller. The book was also listed by the New York Times as one of "6 Books to Help Understand Trump's Win" (November 9, 2016.) She was also awarded a prize for this book (translated by Xia Fan and published by SSAP) in 2020 by the Beijing News Book Review, Beijing, Mainland China.

Another collection of papers devoted to her work is Pathways to Empathy: New Studies on Commodification, Emotional Labor and Time Binds (2013) edited by Gertraud Koch and Stephanie Everke Buchanan (Campus Verlag-Arbeit und Alltag, University of Chicago Press). The book is based on papers given at an "International Workshop in Honour of Hochschild" at Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen, Germany (November 12–13, 2011).

The Managed Heart, The Second Shift, The Time Bind, and Strangers In Their Own Land have been named "Notable Books of the Year" by The New York Times. The Outsourced Self: Intimate Life in Market Times was chosen by Publishers Weekly as one of the "Best Books of 2012." The last chapter was excerpted in The New York Times (May 5, 2012).

Concepts developed by Hochschild, such as "emotional labor," "feeling rules", the "economy of gratitude," and "global care chains" have been adopted by scholars in a range of disciplines. Capturing a range of research and debate, a collection published in 2011, At the Heart of Work and Family: Engaging the Ideas of Arlie Hochschild, critically explores some of her key concepts.

Looking again at Hochschild's concept of "global care chains," there have been more initiatives to feminize global migration with a concentration on these care chains. (Hochschild 2000, 2002) When northern or Western women enter the paid labor market, they typically hire other women to care for their children and other dependents, most often what is considered a more poor woman from a developing country. Migrant caregivers are regularly forced to abandon their children in their home countries to be cared for by even destitute caregivers or family members who are already caring for others or working. The growth of global care networks has been impacted because of several reasons. In affluent countries, the entry of women into labor has resulted in high demand for paid domestic employees, with no corresponding increases in public childcare or gender-based distribution of extra requirements.

In other books, Hochschild applies her perspective on emotion to the American family. In The Second Shift, she argues that the family has been stuck in a "stalled revolution." Most mothers work for pay outside the home; that is the revolution. But the jobs they have and the men they come home to haven't changed as rapidly or deeply as she has; that is the stall. Hochschild argues couples have implicit "gender ideologies" when they marry; the marital role that the women will take on the domestic duties within a home. Mothers, specifically working mothers end up doing the lion's share of the work—both emotional and physical—of tending the home, which leads her to feel resentment. Hence, when a mother is working full time during the day and must come home to perform the majority of the domestic work, this is her "second shift". Hochschild traces links between a couple's division of labor and their underlying "economy of gratitude." Who, she asks, is grateful to whom, and for what? Even those who can balance work and family life face some difficulties. This includes a variety of high-funded daycare options, jobs with little flexibility for missing work to care for a sick child, school schedules that are based on having a stay at home parent, and the assumption that mothers will work a "second shift," meaning they will still take on the majority of domestic labor (Hochschild 1989). To be clear, Hochschild doesn't “advocate a simple return to traditional motherhood.” Instead, she is pushing for more equality of roles in society: for both genders to share the responsibilities of home life, creating a more manageable balance for mothers.

Hochschild was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of Ruth Alene (Libbey) and Francis Henry Russell, a diplomat who served in Israel, New Zealand, Ghana, and Tunisia. Arlie Hochschild grew up in a household where her mother was the primary caregiver and her father was the provider. Her mother "volunteered for the PTA, and helped start a preschool program in Montgomery County, Maryland, all the while supporting my father's job as a government official and diplomat" (Hochschild, Commercialization, p. 3). Hochschild drew on her childhood experiences to study and write on caregiving and having a loving relationship with your children. In the preface of her book, The Commercialization of Intimate Life, she says that her mother was a wonderful woman who committed her life to care for her family and was excellent at it, but she never appeared pleased doing so. Hochschild has been married to her husband, writer Adam Hochschild, since June 1965. They met at a Quaker work camp in Spanish Harlem when she was 20 and he was 17. Although they aren’t practicing Quakers, they still like to embody some of the Quaker values, which are also what drew her to Swarthmore. She later became a mother herself and raised two sons named David Russell and Gabriel Russell.

Hochschild graduated from Swarthmore College in 1962 where she majored in International Relations and was a member of the political action group and the peace corp committee. After, she earned her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, whose faculty she soon joined. She wrote her first book, The Unexpected Community, in 1973. As a graduate student, Hochschild was greatly inspired by the writings of Erving Goffman and C. Wright Mills. In White Collar, Mills argued that we "sell our personality." This resonated with Hochschild, however, she felt that more needed to be added. As she writes,

Arlie Russell Hochschild (/ˈhoʊkʃɪld/; born January 15, 1940) is an American professor emeritus of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley and writer. Hochschild has long focused on the human emotions that underlie moral beliefs, practices, and social life generally. She is the author of nine books including, most recently Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, a finalist for the National Book Award. In The Second Shift, The Managed Heart, The Time Bind, and many of her other books, she continues the tradition of C. Wright Mills by drawing links between private troubles and public issues. Hochschild had a personal fascination with the relationship between peoples inner experiences and outer appearance, so Mills’ concepts of private troubles and personal issues were very influential in the direction of her later works in studying emotion sociologically. His influence can be seen quite clearly in Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right where she analyzes the lives of immigrants for her emotion research.