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Graduate School of Social Sciences

Msc Social Problems and Social Policy

Civic emotion at the

Ombudsman

A sociological exploration of the expression of anger and despair by citizens at the Ombudsman of Amsterdam

Name: Brechtje van Hiele

Student nr: 11108827

Date: 19th August, 2016 Thesis supervisor: Christian Bröer Second reader: Rineke van Daalen

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Acknowledgements

Firstly, I would like to express my gratitude to the citizens who allowed me to use their complaints and intake conversations at the office of the ombudsman for this research. Thank you for allowing me to study your narratives and hereby providing me the opportunity to learn about the constants and variations in the lived reality of their emotions.

Secondly, I would like to thank my supervisor Christian Bröer. For the inspiring conversations we had since the summer of 2015 and his academic guidance, faith in the value of my research and unfailing patience as I struggled.

Thirdly, I want to thank Arre Zuurmond, the Ombudsman of Amsterdam, for giving me the opportunity to be innovative, providing space for critical thinking, a safe space to fail and a platform to get back up again and succeed both in my work as an investigator as in my academic endeavors. I am grateful for the support of the entire Ombudsman-team at the Amsterdam office. Especially May, your continuous encouragement and understanding were of vital importance for me to combine my master degree at the Graduate School with my job as an investigator this past year.

Fourthly, I am blessed and thankful for the people closest to me. My sister Anna and my parents Gerke and Corien, who support and believe in me, even (more) when I don’t. My friends, who put up with my complaining and provided the necessary perspective and distraction during the challenging times of writing my thesis. And finally to Menno, who quickly and unexpectedly became such an important and wonderful presence in my life and heart. Your love and support means the world to me.

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Abstract

This thesis study aimed to explain civic emotion in their approach of the local governmental ombudsman from a socio-cultural perspective. Analysis of the data, both written complaints as well as observation of citizen interaction with investigators at the office hours, shows that anger and despair are the typically expressed emotions. Besides linguistic expressions indicating emotion, by the use of emotives, metaphors and sayings, this study followed Kleres (2011) in his notion that narratives necessarily communicate emotion. It is found that policy institutionalized the stage and space for citizens to express themselves emotionally. The theoretical perspectives of Hochschild’s (2003) emotion management perspective and emotion as moral evaluation are utilized to explain the empirical findings. The almost endless space as well as boundaries that the citizen is given for emotional expression is discusses. It argues how national and municipal policy provides both opportunity and explicit feeling and display rules that allow as well as lead citizens to express themselves as such. Furthermore the the different standards of feeling and display rules for citizens and civils servants are presented as well as the extensive emotional labor performed by Ombudsman investigators as contradiction to the notion of cold bureaucrats. Finally emotion is related to moral violations that are diverse because they are influenced by policy discourse over the entire timeframe of the developing welfare state in the Netherlands. In conclusion, angry or desperate citizens did not ‘just happen’ or ‘randomly occur’. Opposite from that, these citizens are the product of policy that gives space and attention to the individuals emotion and creates morals that, when digressed from, result in negative emotional experience of the citizen.

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Contents

CHAPTER 1: CIVIC EMOTION ... 1

1.1 Introduction ... 1

1.2 Literature Review: interest in how citizens feel about society. ... 2

1.3 Civic emotion ... 3

1.4 Emotionalization of citizenship ... 4

1.5 Context: The Local Governmental Ombudsman of Amsterdam ... 4

1.6 Research aim ... 5

1.7 Who cares? Relevance of the research... 5

1.8 Outline ... 6

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY ... 7

2.1 Researcher & research context ... 7

2.2 Study design- grounded theory approach ... 7

2.3 Data collection ... 8 Participants ... 8 Participant observation ... 9 Written complaints... 10 Sampling ... 10 2.4 Data analysis ... 11

Written complaints - ATLAS.ti ... 11

2.5 Ethics... 12

CHAPTER 3: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ... 13

3.1 Researching the elusive: emotion ... 13

Emotion through language ... 14

Emotion as narrative ... 14

3.2 Theoretical Perspectives ... 16

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Hochschild’s emotion management perspective ... 16

Moral evaluation & emotion ... 17

3.3 Anger & despair ... 20

Anger ... 20

Despair ... 20

3.4 Limitations ... 21

CHAPTER 4: TYPICALLY EXPRESSED EMOTIONS: ANGER & DESPAIR ... 23

4.1 A common thread: anger and despair ... 23

4.2 Expressions of anger ... 23

4.3 Expressions of despair ... 25

Retrospective vs, prospective emotions? ... 28

4.3 ‘Dit kan toch zo niet!/ This is not fair!’ narratives ... 28

CHAPTER 5: POLICY & THE ALMOST ENDLESS SPACE FOR CIVIC EMOTION ... 32

5.1 Diversity in intensity of expressed emotion ... 32

5.2 Supersize emotions please ... 33

5.3 Providing opportunity – setting the stage ... 34

5.4 Policy provides the script for the emotional complaint. ... 36

5.4 How about boundaries? The almost endless space for civic emotion ... 37

CHAPTER 6: COLD BUREAUCRATS? ... 41

6.1 Different standards – emotional labor ... 41

6.2 Managing the citizens emotions – emotional labor ... 42

6.3 Pealing off emotion ... 45

CHAPTER 7: VIOLATED MORALS ... 47

7.1 Differing welfare state moralities in complaints ... 48

‘Daar is de overheid toch voor.’ ... 48

My wish is your demand – consumerism and New Public Management ... 50

7.2 Decentralization of the social domain and the affective turn on the institutional level ... 51

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The affective turn on the interactional level: wanting to be heard. ... 55 CHAPTER 8: CONCLUSION ... 57 References ... Error! Bookmark not defined.

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CHAPTER 1: CIVIC EMOTION

1.1 Introduction

Amsterdam, Singel 250, it is a rainy Tuesday morning and the office of the Local Governmental Ombudsman1 has its weekly open office hours. There are a few people in the waiting area quietly drinking their coffee and waiting their turn. There seems to be a bit of commotion coming from the interview room, but it quiets down soon after. Later that day I ask my colleague what was going on. He answered: “Oh, nothing much, he was just angry.”2 The casual response of my colleague reflected that this kind of emotional display by a citizen was by no means a remarkable event.

Since February 2015 I have been one of the investigators at the Ombudsman office and emotions of citizens are omnipresent. On a common Tuesday at the office, investigators are confronted with expressed emotions ranging from the presentation of a complaint in a rather detached neutral perspective, to a citizen who is clearly irritated, right onto the next conversation where a citizen bursts into tears when trying to explain his situation. These expressions of feelings, moods and stances by citizens has been something I took for granted, a self-evident feature of the work I am employed to do. I considered it a given that citizens can be, and usually are, emotional when they approach the ombudsman. When confronted with it, I tried to make sense of it on the individual case level. Generally reasoning along the lines of: ‘it’s understandable this person is upset because he is in a difficult situation.’

Zygmunt Bauman (2013) however calls for researchers of sociology to de-familiarize the familiar. Wright Mills (2000) argues in his highly influential book, The Sociological Imagination, that as a sociologist we need to have the ability to see both individually experienced problems, as well as the underlying structure of society and especially how these dimensions are fundamentally interconnected. With these considerations in mind, I started to question the self-evidence of the emotional expression of complaints by citizens, problematizing the topic to allow for more critical

1 From here on the term Ombudsman, unless explicitly specified differently, stands for the Office of the Local Governmental Ombudsman of the Amsterdam region where the fieldwork for this research was conducted.

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study. This research aims to make sense of civic emotion from a sociological-cultural perspective with a specific interest in the role of government policy.

1.2 Literature Review: interest in how citizens feel about society.

Even though it is a rather recent topic of interest, interesting research on emotions of citizens, mainly focusing on general discontent, has been conducted in the Netherlands. Steenvoorden (2015) studied the perceived general trend of citizen’s discontent with society, conceptualizing this as societal unease. She notes that the relevance of studying societal unease, which necessarily includes emotions, feelings and stances, lies in the connection and possible implications these stances have for ‘various attitudes and behavior, for instance apathy, political engagement, and civic participation.’

Another interesting research initiative concerning stances of citizens is that by the Sociaal and Cultureel Planbureau (SCP). This long term research is called ‘Continu Onderzoek Burgerperspectieven’ (COB). Since early 2008, every quarter, surveys are done among approximately 1000 participants to gain insight in prevalent citizen perspectives. As the authors state, the COB aims to provide insight into what worries or concerns people and what they find important issues in current day society. Consequently attention is paid to why they think or feel this way (Dekker & den Ridder, 2011). In the 2011 edition specific attention was paid to emotionality in the chapter ‘Bezorgde en boze burgers’, focusing fully on ‘concerned and angry citizens’ and the content of their accusations (Houwelingen, 2011). The most recent edition of Burgerperspectieven again shows a decline in the percentage of respondents that think the Netherlands is ‘on the right path’ and an increase on those who think the Netherlands is ‘heading in the wrong direction’ (Ridder, Dekker, Houwelingen & Schrijver, 2016). The expression of emotion is prevalent in the answers to these survey questions.

Another report that shows governmental interest in the opinions and stances of citizens is by the Raad voor Maatschappelijke Ontwikkeling, or Council for Societal Development. The RMO is an advisory council to government and parliament on citizen participation and societal stability. In 2013 the RMO published the report ‘Het Onbehagen Voorbij’ (Winter et al, 2013). In the report it is noted that there is a strong current of societal unease, of citizens being unhappy with the state of Dutch Society. Their use of the term unease corresponds well to the notion of general discontent presented by Steenvoorden (2015). In the RMO’s report this ‘general uneasiness’ is characterized as a

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an intangible, free floating vibe with various emotions at its base with different rationalizations. As common denominator only a sense of powerlessness is named. This characterization of uneasiness as intangible free-floating stance towards government and society is questionable. Is the expression of emotion indeed free-floating? And if not, where does it stem from?

1.3 Civic emotion

To critically study the emotional expression of citizens requires conceptualization of these elements together, from here on called civic emotion. Speaking of emotion, for now, an everyday understanding of the term emotion as referring to a feeling state suffices. The most straightforward first division is whether it is a positive or negative feeling state. The word civic is an adjective and roughly means ‘in relation to one’s citizenship’. For example speaking of someone’s ‘civic duty’ refers to the duty one has in respect of being a citizen. Tying Civic Emotion together as one concept therefore refers to emotions as experiences and expressed by an individual in relation to or embedded in one’s position of being a citizen.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Leydet, 2014) offers a broad definition of citizenship: “A citizen is a member of a political community who enjoys the rights and assumes the duties of membership.” Citizenship therefore is the position connected to this membership, where the rights and duties are foundations of being part of society (Hurenkamp & Tonkens, 2011). Examples of rights and duties of the citizens as well as of the government of the Netherlands can be found clearly in the Constitution. Being a Dutch citizen for example, you have the right to freedom of speech, to vote, freedom of religion etc. Duties are for example the ‘leerplicht’ which outlines the compulsory attendance in education up to a certain age, but also payment of taxes, upholding the law etc. Duties of government dare also specified. Such as in Art. 19A: “It shall be the concern of the authorities to promote the provision of sufficient employment.” Or Art. 20A: “It shall be the concern of the authorities to secure the means of subsistence of the population and to achieve the distribution of wealth.” However this description of citizenship about formal rights and duties does not seem adequate in describing the dimensions of citizenship that can be observed in current day society.

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1.4 Emotionalization of citizenship

Tonkens & de Wilde (2013) theorize that government in the Netherlands, with politicians taking the lead, took an affective turn in the early 21st century. This was in response to a perceived gap between citizens and institutions. The idea behind the affective turn was to close the gap by seeking to ‘get closer’ to the citizens. This attempt of increased proximity was characterized by the appeal to civil servants to ‘really engage with and listen to’ the people, the citizens. This was further characterized by the government’s encouragement of citizens to actively participate, have an opinion and contribute to society on for example neighborhood level. This new trend of engagement implied an emotionalization of the

relation and dynamic among citizens as well as between the citizen and government organizations (Tonkens

& de Wilde, 2013). Citizenship, instead of being a neutral concept regarding formal rights and duties, gained a strong emotional dimension. This is markedly illustrated by civic intergration course offering to facilitate integration of ‘foreigners’ into a country to become real citizens. Extending far beyond basic knowledge of the language to the promotion of a supposedly distinctly Dutch way of living and working including actually feeling Dutch. When entering ‘inburgeringscursus’ on Google, the first hit is an advertisement by Capabeltaal with a slogan that illustrates the emotionalization thesis markedly: “Inburgeringscursus NL: voelt u zich al thuis in Nederland?’ Do you feel at home in the Netherlands yet?

1.5 Context: The Local Governmental Ombudsman of Amsterdam

In this study civic emotion is researched by observing and analyzing emotions in complaints to the Ombudsman by citizens from the Amsterdam region in their dealings with local government. The original idea of an Ombudsman is based on the notion that citizens should have the possibility to present their grievances on government organizations, officials or employees to an independent office (Seneviratne, 2002). It is a so-called ‘second-line’ institute, which means that in principle complaints are only taken up by the ombudsman when the citizen has already filed a complaint with the concerning government organization and the organization therefore has had the opportunity to deal with the complaint on its own. When a citizen has filed a complaint but believes their

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grievance has not been dealt with properly, they can turn to the Ombudsman. Making it an excellent access point for the study of citizen’s discontent. The Ombudsman can consequently decide to investigate the matter and make recommendations on how the matter is to be resolved. Besides dealing with individual complaints and resolving individual situations the ombudsman aims to achieve systemic improvement of government services by detecting structural issues and offering recommendations for improvement.

1.6 Research aim

This study aims to explore the expression of emotion by citizens at the ombudsman from a sociological perspective. First this requires insight in to the kind of emotions expressed and how they are expressed. Secondly, it looks into possible social cultural factors that offer explanation to the individual expressions. It specifically explores the role of policy.

1.7 Who cares? Relevance of the research

Investigators at the Ombudsman office are constantly confronted with people who experience and express emotion. The job of an Ombudsman investigator is to find out what happened with regards to the particular grievances brought to him and to move towards a solution. To know if the Ombudsman can be of help, the investigator needs to engage in the process of listening, connecting, find out underlying assumptions and situations to explore possible steps forward. Emotions, as van Rooij (2016) states, are powerful and complex beyond measure, and can be a destructive force in this process. By recognizing the profound and central presence of emotion, you can take them into account in your communication and therefore clear the way towards a solution. In other words, understanding or even recognizing emotion is an integral part of being able to help someone. By having insight in cultural factors influencing emotions, this could help the ombudsman and his researchers in understanding the point of view and emotional intensity better and therefore better be able to provide their service.

From an academic point of view, specifically the discipline of sociology, there is a relevance argument concerning this research as adding to knowledge on emotions as social phenomenon. As the sociology of emotions is a relatively recent field of study, there is a need for empirical and theoretical work to enhance the sociological understanding of emotion. Barbalet (2004) argues there is “a need for a deeper understanding of particular

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emotions, especially those central to social processes”. The unique double function of the researcher as academic as well as public servant provides an opportunity to get close to the very capillaries of citizens’ discontent. Not just as a general stance, but tied to a specific grievance. Which is a topic that currently gathers much debate and attention (Verhoeven, 2009) and I am happy to contribute to.

1.8 Outline

Chapter 1 provided the introduction, interest and value of this research. Chapter 2 sets out the design and methodology used in the research process. Chapter 3, provides the theoretical framework. It discusses the elusivity of studying emotion and the approach of linguistic and narrative analysis taken in this research. Furthermore it presents the theoretical perspectives that were deemed complementary in explaining civic emotion at the Ombudsman. Firstly, Hochschild’s (2003) emotion management perspective and secondly emotion as moral evaluation. Chapter 4 is the first empirical chapter and presents the typically expressed emotions of anger and despair through linguistic expressions as well as the communication of an evaluative ‘it’s not fair’- narrative. Chapter 5 discusses the almost endless space as well as boundaries that the citizen is given for emotional expression. It argues how national and municipal policy provides both opportunity and explicit feeling and display rules that allow as well as lead citizens to express themselves as such. Chapter 6 discusses the different standards of feeling and display rules for citizens and civils servants. It further explores the extensive emotional labor performed by Ombudsman investigators as contradiction to the notion of cold bureaucrats. Chapter 7 relates emotion to moral violations and discusses how these morals are influenced by policy discourse over the entire timeframe of the developing welfare state in the Netherlands. Chapter 8 presents a summary of the previous chapters and ties the findings together.

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CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

2.1 Researcher & research context

Since February 2015 I have been part of the team of investigators at the LGOA. During the data collection I was working for approximately 24 hours a week. My job entails handling and investigating cases of citizens that are assigned to me as well as working on researching possible structural issues. Therefore access to the field came prior to the formulation of the actual research question. Having a double role of investigator for the ombudsman as well as researcher for university posed both challenges and advantages. Major advantage was the full access to the research context. Challenging was to balance these roles and stay mindful of the specific position I found myself in.

The office of the Local Governmental Ombudsman in Amsterdam was founded in 1987. Since September 2013, Arre Zuurmond is the appointed Ombudsman. The LGOA consists of a team of approximately 20 people, divided in front- and back- office investigators as well as support staff. Since 2015 the Ombudsinstitute of Amsterdam also includes the newly appointed Children Ombudsman, A.M. van der Does. The LGOA can address grievances about the following municipalities as well as organizations under responsibility of Amsterdam, Almere, Diemen, Landsmeer, Waterland, Zaanstad and regional partnerships Stadsregio Amsterdam and Veiligheidsregio Amsterdam – Amstelland (Gemeentelijke Ombudsman, 2016).

Every day from 10.00 to 12.00 o’clock the front office has office hours where citizens can reach them via the phone to file or discuss their complaint. Every Tuesday morning from 10.00 to 12.00 o’clock the ombudsman has visiting hours where citizens can come by the office to discuss their grievance face to face. Furthermore citizens have the possibility to file their complaint via regular post, e-mail or fill in the complaint form at the website at their convenience. These various ways of possible complaint presentation and interaction between the citizens and the investigators of the ombudsman provided fertile ground for data collection.

2.2 Study design- grounded theory approach

In attempting to find an explanation for the emotions of citizens at the ombudsman, I use a grounded theory approach. A grounded theory approach uses data

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as starting point and lets the theory develop from there onwards (Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2006). Furthermore this approach places the researcher in the field of study to make sure the results are ‘grounded’ (Law et al, 1998). The idea behind this approach is to not start of your research design already limiting possible explanations to pre-conceived notions. Considering that I already was a part of the research context before, pre-conceived notions and explanations can be quite strong. De-familiarizing the research topic therefore was the first challenge. To de-familiarize yourself it is important to be open to possibilities that may not have occurred to me before and come as a surprise (Timmermans & Tavory, 2012; Bryman, 2016). Naturally, with my professional background as well as sociology training there is no such thing as going in blank. The abductive approach corresponded to this, as it entails being familiar with several different theories and therefore sensitized but not limited to these possibilities.

2.3 Data collection

Recognizing this position of having a double role I made the methodological choice for triangulation of data sources. Triangulation entails “using two different methods to get at the same research question with the goal of looking for convergence in research findings” (Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2006). In this study this consists of participant observation in the office hours as well as a discourse and narrative analysis of written complaints.

Participants

The ombudsman does not collect demographic data on the citizens that approach him. From observation it can be said however that complainants are a highly heterogeneous group ranging through gender, class, ethnic background, education level, religion etc. What they have in common is that they live in the region of Amsterdam and had some sort of dealing with the local government which they feel constitutes maladministration (unfair, unjust) and therefore requires the attention of the ombudsman. In other words, they are citizens with a complaint about government.3

3 Even though overall citizenship can be considered a common denominator, there are instances that an individual approaches the ombudsman when they do not formally have a legal citizenship status. Complaints are considered and taken up regardless of this when the Ombudsman sees a need for his service. The sample studied here however does not contain complainants that do not have citizenship.

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Participant observation

Participant observation as research method is characterized by the extended presence of a researcher in the field (Law et al, 1998). As the word – participant- indicates, the researcher is actually part of the setting. Throughout the research process I transitioned from a complete participant to a participant-as-observer. I started taking fieldnotes in the summer of 2015. Simply carrying a notebook with me wherever I went and making observations of anything that seemed interesting to me. The first months these were general observations as I had not formulated a research question yet. In this phase my role can be regarded as that of a complete participant as I actively engaged within the setting but did not necessarily communicate my academic interests to people I encountered (Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2006). The findings from these general notes lead to a narrowed down topic of interest, with a corresponding research question and laid out approach. After having narrowed down the research to a specific question and possible topic area my role as researcher morphed into that of a participant-as-observer where I fully participated in the setting but also unveiled my academic interest.

Initially I aimed to separate my role as an academic researcher and that of being an investigator for the ombudsman. There were occasions where I sat in on office hours conversation where two colleagues would do the conversation. I quickly noticed how easy boundaries were blurred when I felt the need to chime in because I felt that the content of the conversation would be benefited by my professional input. Another personal consideration I made to combine roles was that a citizen is already confronted with two representatives of the ombudsman in this first intake conversation, with the relatively small rooms I feared adding a third person as observer would not benefit the comfort level of the citizen. Due to these as well as practical time related considerations, my roles as investigator and as academic researcher were for the majority of the time not separated. This means that when a citizen comes in during office hours with a case that would be assigned to me, I would attempt to simultaneously function in both roles. Sometimes it was possible to scribble down notes during a conversation. Other times however, when I had to take a more prominent role in the conversation as investigator for the ombudsman, I would try and take a few minutes after the conversation ended to write down some thoughts and observations. This resulted in an extensive collection of notes of various conversations and interactions. Even though this material is not

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quantifiable as such, it provided valuable information that was triangulated with the analysis of written complaints.

Written complaints

Besides the fieldwork, I conducted a discourse and narrative analysis of written complaints. The approach taken here was inspired by the research of Rineke van Daalen (1987). Van Daalen studied complaint letters of citizens addressed to the city of Amsterdam in the time period between 1865 and 1920. Her study provides important and interesting insight in what kind of grievances and how citizens approached the government in their request. The research of van Daalen, which extends far beyond this study, offers a multidimensional image of society in this time period, reflecting on norms and values, status, social order etc. (Ten Haave, 2004). The advantage of using documents is that even though it still requires interpretation, the material is original and directly obtained from the citizen. As opposed to my fieldnotes, studying written complaint allowed me to go back to the original expression again when for example a new focal point got my interest. Another advantage was that as opposed to questioning citizens directly on their emotional experience, these first complaints are not written with the idea of academic research in the back of their mind. In qualitative analysis there is a long tradition on ‘using non – living materials to study the world’. Bogdanova (2013) discusses the unique opportunities that the genre has to offer for research. There is a lot of information to be gained from the complaints. As Bogdanova states:” A complaint is a peculiar social mirror, an idiosyncratic, culturally determined translation of legal ideas into the language of the law’s users.” By studying what someone complains about, you get insight into what people find desirable and/or appropriate government behavior. It therefore provides an image of citizenship and its emotional dimension in current day formation.

Sampling

When it comes to case selection for the discourse and narrative analysis the IT system of the ombudsman was utilized. A time frame of 6 months ranging from October 2015 to March 2016 was chosen as sample population. The timeframe was chosen based on several considerations. Firstly, the wish to have recent examples. Second consideration was more practical as the Ombudsman had from this time implemented a

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new case management system. This IT system of the local ombudsman allows for filtering of cases based on preferred parameters such as date of reception of complaint, process status, priority indicator, investigator tied to the case etc. Parameters limiting the sample population were as followed: Cases where the complaint was submitted in writing. This could be via the form on the website of the ombudsman, via letter, or e-mail. Cases that have come in via the telephone or via the open office hours were excluded as investigators make note of the complaint and therefore paraphrase the original expression of language of the complainant.

Once the sample population was established cases were initially randomly selected. This method however did not provide a sufficient data source as many complainants out of this random sample were not reachable for permission or declined. Therefore I adjusted my strategy more towards practical success and approached complainants from the original sample population that I could reach and gain permission from. This led to a total sample of 38written complaints.

The complete research material was saved on an external hard disk to ensure no one but the researcher has access. The external hard disk was either stored in the researchers personal workstation which was consequently locked or taken home with the researcher. The work account of the researcher at the ombudsman is properly secured by the municipality’s security system.

2.4 Data analysis

Written complaints - ATLAS.ti

The complaints were gathered and uploaded to the qualitative research program Atlas. Consequently the first 15 were coded extensively. A code is what Saldana (2013) defines as ‘a word or short phrase that symbolically assigns a summative, salient, essence-capturing, and/or evocative attribute for a portion of language-based or visual data.’ This first stage of the process can be described as ‘free coding’, it entails labeling any word or sentence that seemed striking, repetitive or relevant in some way of another. Once these first 15 were coded, Atlas.ti provides the opportunity to have an overview of the codes. Going through these codes and the amount of times I used them to describe segments revealed certain red threads. This gave a sense of what kind of text elements were common or exceptional. This gave rise to the first rough categories of analysis that would

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form the foundation for the rest of the document analysis as well as functioned as key signal points in the observation in the fieldwork. Therefore the findings from the discourse analysis functioned as points of interest in the fieldwork, in phone conversations as well as office meetings. As the research continues these categories were adjusted with regards to relevance and application in the entire data sample. The process of going through all written complaints was as Kohler Riesman (2000) puts it: “a slow and painstaking approach requiring attention to subtlety”. It meant going back again and again when a new code emerged that I overlooked in the first instances.

2.5 Ethics

For the ethical considerations of this research I use Beauchamp & Childress’ (2001) four basic principles. Firstly, ensuring respect for the autonomy of the citizen. Consent is of main interest here, however in many settings I did not announce my academic interest beforehand. When a case would fall within my selection criteria I would ask the citizen in retrospect if they would allow me to use fieldnotes for my master thesis research. With the written complaints I called the complainant to ask their consent. The benefits of the study in the greater scheme are that there will be a better understanding of emotions of citizens and therefore better service delivery by the institute. Starting assumption is that there are no negative consequences for people to passively participate in this study. There was no added time investment required on the side of the citizen and the incorporation of fieldnotes or written complaint in the bulk data collection is completely separate from the handling of their case.

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CHAPTER 3: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

3.1 Researching the elusive: emotion

Emotions are expressed constantly and everywhere. It is in tears of the woman whose financial support is being cut, it is in the angry yelling of a citizen who is upset with the type of work he has to do in the municipal reintegration trajectories to the labor market. In everyday life we speak of emotions as something obvious and normal that simply exists and something we all experience (Reddy, 2004). In fact emotions are an intrinsic and essential part of human life that we all experience on a day to day basis (Bericat, 2015). When a citizen for example cries, you know it is emotional for them. However regardless of practically ‘knowing’ what emotion is purely by being human, answering the question ‘what is emotion?’ proves to be more complicated. According to the Oxford Dictionary an emotion is “A strong feeling deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others.” However as Elster (2007) notes there is no agreed upon straightforward answer to the most basic questions such as: What is emotion? Which emotions are there? What are they actually for? The questions themselves already imply specific outlooks such as the assumption that here are different, distinguishable kinds of emotions or that emotions are functional in some way or another. Emotion in this thesis is characterized as an episode, a distinct conscious experience. Following Wetherell (2012)the term furthermore is interpreted in a broad sense and is taken to include feeling stances, attitudes and moods.

Many of the studies do not specifically address the difficulty of having emotion as a research subject. It certainly does not fulfill the positivist requirements of being an ‘observable, measurable and unambiguous’ research subject (Flam, 2015). Nevertheless various academic disciplines have by now become aware of necessity to research emotion as it is a phenomena essential to human life (Kleres, 2011; Bloch, 2015. The field of study has evolved rapidly and is continuously expanding and developing. Peräkylä & Sorjonen (2012) state that emotions have usually been studied outside real interactions. Many research experiments are set up using emotions as a predetermined variable. People are for example asked to indicate their emotional response and can hereby distinguish between intensity and label their own emotion. This research studies emotion within

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real world interaction. Hereby it relies primarily on the use of language and narratives of citizens.

Emotion through language

“Texts— no matter whether spoken, written, or drawn— cannot help but communicate emotions. (Wettegren, 2015). Language carries emotion. The discipline of linguistics has made quite some strides regarding the identification of emotion through language indicators. The most straightforward way of recognizing an emotion through texts is when the narrator explicitly spells it out by for example stating: I am angry. Reddy (2004) calls these kind of emotional expressions ‘emotives’. As Wetherell (2012) in my opinion rightly argues, the description of emotives as a first person speech act is far too limited when it comes to analyzing emotions in everyday life. Affective states are communicated by different means, not just via first person discourse or gestures explicitly regarding a certain state, but also by indirect ways. As Fussel (2002) notes, there is an abundance of verbal strategies to communicate emotions. Ochs & Schieffelin (1989) speak of social referencing, where a common understanding of language is used to communicate one’s feeling state. This is for example when someone uses a metaphor or saying to paint a picture that communicates emotion.

Emotion as narrative

“The crucial idea is that the narrative elements of a story together configure emotional experience. The gestalt of actors, events, conditions, thoughts, feelings, etc. constitutes an emotion”

Kleres (2011). Despite these examples, in the majority of complaints there is no explicit expression of a feeling state by the narrator. This however does not mean there is no communication of emotion in complaints. It simply means that people do not usually spell out their feeling state explicitly. Or in Wetherell’s words: There is, in fact, minimal description of ‘feelings’, yet their utterances are certainly ‘felt’ by the reader or listener. Retzinger (1991) argued for the importance of recognizing emotion though implicit

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messages. He states that it does not require explicit reference in language for an emotion to be conveyed or communicated. In fact it can be a combination of words or elements that implies a certain emotionality

Kleres (2011) sets out the methodology of the systematic research of emotion through narrative analysis. A narrative is the individual’s account of how something happened. When communicating an occurrence the individual puts things in order, representing what happened first and what happened then. On how he or she thinks or represents how a certain things went (Kleres, 2011; Elliott, 2005). The complainant paints a picture in the narrative and relies on the tacit knowledge of the reader/conversation partner, to convey an emotional image of the unfairness of the situation. The choice of elements in communicating this complaint construct and shape the emotional experience. Or in Goldie’s (2000) words: “An emotion is structured in that it constitutes part of a narrative – roughly an unfolding sequence of actions and events, thoughts and feelings- in which the emotion itself is embedded”. Kleres (2011) argues that narratives are inextricably emotionally structured. In other words there is no narrative without emotion or emotion without narrative.

To gain insight in the emotionality, the narrative needs to be deconstructed to elements that form an appraisal, or appeal. In its most basic form, appraisal theory postulates that emotions are elicited by evaluations (appraisals) of events and situations (Moors, 2013) From a cognitive perspective, Richard Lazarus argued already in the 1960’s that the experience of emotion is always preceded by an appraisal or evaluation of a situation. He argued that it is not the situation or event that is intrinsically good or bad, but about the way we look at it. Emotional experience therefore depends on our positive or negative evaluation of the occurrence. In Lerner & Keltner’s (2001) words on this social constructionist view on emotion: “The primary determinants of emotions as experienced cannot be physiological or individual in origin because the subjective experience of emotion requires a cognitive appraisal of the meaning of events, and such appraisals rely on language and socially determined meanings.” Kleres (2011) however points out the flaw in a purely cognitive theory of experiencing emotion. The experience of emotion cannot be straightforward characterized as the outcome of the rational calculation that A (social norms/values/expectations) deviates from B (perception of event) which leads to C (emotion). It is not the calculation that causally leads to anger, it

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is the construction and perception that is at the core of the emotion. Appraisal theory however can be used to backtrack how the narrator constructs the emotion when writing the complaint. As Wettegren (2015) argues, to gain insight in the emotionality of a text that is not explicitly addressing feeling states, “The analysis has to backtrack from the action to the emotion; or to shift focus from the action that is described to the emotion that accompanies it.”

3.2 Theoretical Perspectives

Sociology of emotions

With regards to the field of sociology, the study of emotions is a relatively recent phenomenon (Kusenback & Loseke 2013/ Turner & Stets, 2006). In fact the sociology research into emotion is only about 45 years old. This does not mean that sociologists never discussed emotion, but merely that it has not been the object of empirical research as its current form until the 70’s. (Kusenbach & Loseke, 2013/ Turner & Stets, 2008/ Stets, 2012). For a useful overview on the different approaches within the sociology of emotion I highly recommend the 2012 article by Jan Stets and for a more in depth view the handbooks (2006 & 2014) by Stets & Turner. Taking a grounded theory approach, collection and analysis of the data pointed towards the use of two theoretical approaches deemed of specific relevance and complementary interest in explaining the experiences and expression of emotion.

Hochschild’s emotion management perspective

One of the main sociological approaches in attempting to understand emotion is the relation it has to culture. Even though scholars use different terms the common ground of this theoretical perspective is the idea of a sort of ‘cultural script’. In Turner & Stets’ (2006) words this script includes “ideologies, norms and rules, logics, vocabularies, and implicit stocks of knowledge about which feelings should be experienced and expressed in episodes of face to face interaction.” Arlie Hochschild is one of the pioneers in the study of emotion. Her highly influential work is centered around the notion of the inherently social character of emotions. Hochschild coined the following terms that were used as sensitizing concepts in the grounded theory approach. Firstly, feeling rules govern the intensity, direction, and duration of an emotion (Peterson, 2006). Basically what you are

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supposed to feel, how strong or weak the emotion should be experience, if it is positive or negative as well as how long you experience it. Display rules regard how the emotion is supposed to be expressed, what is appropriate (Hochschild, 2003) Both feeling and display rules can be conscious and unconsciously shared ideas in a particular society (van Daalen, 2009). Hochschild uses the example of a funeral to explain this. When someone dies, feeling rules dictates that you experience feelings of sadness or grief with the intensity and duration roughly depending on how ‘close’ one was with the deceased. Consequently there are specific acceptable way of expressing this emotion. For someone who attends a funeral it is acceptable to express sadness with tears. Hysterically laughing however would constitute a deviation from the cultural script of expression, at least in Dutch culture. Because of these norms on what kind of feeling one is supposed to feel as well as what an appropriate way of expressing this is shows that the expression and experience of emotion is not a free floating phenomenon. Instead the emotional experience of the individual is actively shaped by culture. Further relevant concepts in explaining civic emotion from interaction of citizen with ombudsman investigators, is that of emotion work and emotion labor. Emotion work refers to the activity of managing to conform to feeling and display rules. Emotional labor occurs when it is an integral part of the job to manage your own and others emotions (Hochschild, 2003).

Moral evaluation & emotion

Jasso (2006) theorizes on emotion in the specific context of justice processes. She proposes that humans have an individual sense of justice. It is this sense that triggers emotion. For example one can experience/express a range of negative emotions when one feels they have been treated unfairly, for example by not being rewarded in the way the individual expected. Or doing the same job as someone else yet being paid less. This ‘individual’ sense however is highly social in nature. It is largely dependent on one’s culture whether something is just or not. Another way of conceptualizing this sense of justice is to look at is as various moralities. They state that morality ‘ultimately revolves around evaluative cultural codes that specify what is right or wrong, good or bad, acceptable or unacceptable.’ This thesis follows Turner & Stets (2006) extended notion of moral emotions, as the emotional reactions to the moral violation of the other. Aiming to provide insight in the

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variety of abstractions of morality and how it relates to emotion, Turner & Stets conceptualize the various ‘levels of moral coding’ structured

hierarchically along the lines of ‘intensity of evaluative content’. This ranges from the highest macro level of abstraction, namely values in general to the micro level of situational norms (see figure *4).

As his research looks at civic emotion, emotionality experienced and expressed in the context of their citizenship, it adapts the model to display citizenship/government morality from the most concrete interactional level to general values dominantly present in a society. This is illustrated by the example of moralities in the social domain. The social domain stands for welfare services, such as

laid out in the participation act, the WMO, the AWBZ.

4 Note that the label ‘intensity of evaluative content’ refers to the ‘amount of morality in the evaluation’. It does not function as indicator or predictor of the experienced emotion by the citizen. In fact there is no pattern recognizable in the complaint letters where someone who perceives a deviation on the ideological level of morality is ‘more’ angry than someone who perceives it in relation to situational norms.

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Figure 1

VALUES

This category refers to the abstract values that are widely shared in society. These are overarching ideas on right and wrong. Even though these values are cornerstones of making sense of a complaint, they are rarely directly expressed. Specifically because they are widely shared and therefore not directly expressed. A complainant who is homeless and has a grievance about how the municipality assisted him in finding living arrangement, will not explain the underlying value of the importance for a human being to have shelter, as this is a value he can rely on to be generally shared.

IDEOLOGIES

This is the level where values are translated into moral codes for broad institutional domains. It is the first concretization of values towards codes in a wide area such as the role of the government. Taking the context of the social domain, ideology can be a guide in the level of state involvement with regards to the lives and well-being of its individual citizens. It contains ideas on to what extent the government has the responsibility to take care of citizens who (again according to societal norms) cannot take care of themselves sufficiently.

VALUES

IDEOLOGY

INSTITUTION

INTERACTION

Level of abstraction

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INSTITUTIONAL NORMS

Institutional norm concern the practical realization and implementation of the government’s role. So in line with the previous examples from the social domain it goes from the general value of well-being, to the role of government in providing this for its citizens, to how exactly the government is supposed to go about providing assistance to those in need.

INTERACTION

On the interaction level civic morality concerns the most concrete micro norms of how people act and interact ‘properly’. In the case of civic morality, how citizens and government officials interact.

3.3 Anger & despair

Anger

From an evolutionary perspective anger is deemed one of the primary emotions that plays a role in the human evolution. In essence it states that anger is a productive and useful emotion state because it directs that person to a source of this negative feeling that may pose a danger (Dubreuil, 2015). Certain physiological aspects have been determined as linked to experiencing anger. The body’s release of the hormone adrenaline that accompanies anger has effects such as increased heart rate but also specific facial expressions (Dubreuil, 2015). The adrenaline then facilitates physical aggression, which would make it possible for the threatened human to fight.

Speaking of anger as ‘a feeling state’ does not provide insight in the dynamic and essentially unique nature of every and anyone’s feeling state. The shades, varieties and nuances of a feeling state grouped under the label ‘anger’ can seem endless (Ellsworth & Scherer, 2003). Ellsworth and Scherer (2003:575) state that "rather than a single emotion of anger, there can be many varieties of * almost anger' and many nuances of the anger experience." For the sake of clarity I grouped several labels under the broader category of ‘anger’, namely what I interpreted as expressions of annoyance, frustration and indignation.

Despair

In the words of Kessous et al (2010), despair is characterized as the feeling state of being faced with an existential problem, without solution, coupled with a refusal to

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accept the situation. As with the category of anger, several coding labels were grouped under ‘despair’. These are loss of hope, powerlessness, helplessness, but also expressions of panic.

Gelbrich (2010) states that feelings of helplessness arise when people have no faith in their ability or general chance to deal with a ‘goal incongruent’ – or in other words undesirable- event. Feelings of powerlessness, where someone feels they are not in the position to control the situation necessarily indicate a power relation. This dependency relation is something many complainants find themselves as they are relying on the government for their income and means of living. Power which is defined as having control over others and powerlessness as being controlled by others (Gelbrich, 2010).

Gelbrich (2010) researched emotions of customers in the context of service failure in the private sector. Her findings from this study partly correspond to the results of the present study with regards to anger and helplessness. Furthermore expressed anger in the complaints, both written as in office hours, is most often a retrospective emotion. It is tied to an evaluation of an event. (Gelbrich, 2010). It is for example common that a citizen expresses anger about how they did not get a certain financial support, and desperation on how they will manage without this support in the future. Despair therefore is a prospective emotion, relating to the vision on future events.

3.4 Limitations

The study of emotion in real-world interactions relies heavily on the interpretation of the researcher in determining the kind of emotion that is expressed. When it comes to studying emotion through fieldwork observation and written complaints there is an intermediary step to the results. Emotion labels are attached to the narratives based on what I as researcher thinks constitutes a certain emotion. This labeling of course is dependent on culture. However these difficulties and considerations should not deter one from researching the topic. Instead as in all qualitative research, the researcher can embrace this subjectivity and function as the primary instrument.Even though the emphasis of emotion was on language, physical indicators of emotion, though not systematically observed, proved an inescapable part of human interaction. Therefore in face-to-face interaction, emotion and its intensity was assigned by interpretation depending on countless indicators that leads one to recognize an emotion simply by being

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human yourself. Examples are the tone of voice, if it is harsh or soft. The loudness, is someone raising their voice or even yelling, or quite demure. Body language could be another indicator, is the complainant sitting back in their chair or leaning forward over the table. But these are examples that are actually measurable, interpretation depends also on a look in someone’s eyes, the slightest change of attitude or subtle use of wording. As Wettegren (2015) states, “both researchers and lay people know a lot about the emotions of others, and we constantly act upon this knowledge, routinely managing both our own and other’s emotion.” Keeping in mind the subjectivity and its limitations this can still propel valuable research results.

This research chose to cluster emotions under two broader categories of anger & despair. Some scholars however argue that each of these need to be conceptualized separately. Granted, this can be very useful for specific goals and research contexts. However with regards to the aim of the research question and the limited research capacity, I did not prioritize this aspect. Instead, realizing that this does not sufficiently capture all the nuances, complexity and every changing nature of emotion, I chose the categories of anger and despair, to indicate the emotional stances of citizens who present their grievance at the ombudsman.

. It is important to realize that all sociological theories of emotion are by nature limited and partial because they focus on some aspect rather than another (Stets, 2012). As Berscheid (Planalp, 1999) states: “However we think about emotion, we can find theorist to agree with us.” Even though there is clear merit to these theories and it helps us understand human behavior

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CHAPTER 4: TYPICALLY EXPRESSED EMOTIONS: ANGER &

DESPAIR

4.1 A common thread: anger and despair

Anger and despair are the emotion categories that are most prevalent in the presentation of complaints by citizens. Even though this research found citizens to express a range of emotion in differing intensities, anger and despair were clearly dominant. This finding is based on emotion indicators in the fieldwork as well as the discourse and narrative analysis of 40 complaints. Some type of anger (including righteous indignation, frustration) was deemed present in 34 out of the 40 complaints. Despair (including powerlessness, helplessness) was deemed present in 21 out of 40. Other emotions that were present, yet to a lesser extent, were grief, shock, disbelief, fear and sadness.

4.2 Expressions of anger

Anger is one of the most recognizable common sense emotions. As Schieman (2006) states it is one of the emotions you ‘just know when you feel or see it’. In general one could say that anger is a distinctly negative feeling state of displeasure related to a situation or object. Anger becomes apparent in both written complaints as well as spoken interaction through different strategies.

The first and most straightforward way anger is recognizable is through emotives (Reddy, 2004). Examples of this are fragments from both written complaints as well as office hour interaction.

W 15

“Ik ben erg

verontwaardigd dat mijn

aanvraag niet serieus in behandeling wordt genomen.”

I am indignant that my request is not taken seriously

F

1 ik dat niet leuk, kom op zeg. Toch “Ja hallo, natuurlijk vind logisch dat ik daar boos om ben.”

Yeah well, of course I don’t like that, come on. Of course that makes me angry.

In fragment WC1,the use of the first person speech act ‘I am indignant’ directly communicates the feeling state of the citizen to the reader, in this case the investigator of

5 the blue font indicates that the quote comes from a written complaint. The green font ’ indicates that the quote comes from fieldwork observations.

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the Ombudsman. Being indignant refers to a state where one feels wronged and is angry about this. Fragment FW1 is a statement made by a citizen over the phone. Her anger was related to the decision of the municipality to place a docking station for one of the Canal tour companies in front of her house. The double use of ‘of course’ (in Dutch, ‘natuurlijk’ and ‘logisch’) signals how the complainant regarded her emotion as completely self-evident in relation to the act of government, and her expression of this emotion as common sense. Another example of a direct expression of emotion in written complaints is fragment X .

“Ik vind het ronduit belachelijk dat er zo slordig wordt gewerkt (dat mijn persoonlijke papieren meerdere malen kwijt zijn geraakt) en dat ik zo in de maling wordt genomen.”

I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that my personal papers are being handled so carelessly (even losing it several times) and that I’m being tossed around like this.

Her use of the phrasing ‘thinking something is ridiculous’ communicates intense disagreement. The emotionality is further amplified by the use of the Dutch saying ‘in de maling worden genomen’. This saying traditionally indicates a sense of being misled and therefore contains and communicates a strong negative emotionality. In this case she uses it in referring to what she considers misconduct of a civil servant, relying on the social norm that personal papers should be treated with care and regard. Hereby she communicates an image of unfairness that legitimizes the anger. Sayings, short well known expressions, are used fairly often both in written complaints as well as face-to-face interaction to indicate a certain feeling state. Variations on the common Dutch saying ‘ergens zat van zijn’ are used often to emphasizes the intensity of a negative feeling state that can be clustered under ‘anger’.

W “Hij en ik zijn het

spuugzat” absolutely sick of it. Him and me, are

W “ik ben het om eerlijk

te zijn goed zat” sick of it To be honest I am really

F “Ik ben het gewoon een

beetje zat nu, snapt u?” you know? I’m just kind of sick of it, This particular saying can be paralleled with the English figurative speech ‘being sick of something’, indicating a state where one is absolutely ‘done’ with something. It communicates a feeling where one’s limit has been reached. In face-to-face interaction this linguistic expression was often accompanied by specific intonation and emphasis on the adjective to indicate intensity.

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Even though there are many examples of angry expressions in the data, there are exceptions.

I vividly remember my colleague talking on the phone with a woman who was about to be evicted from her house. When my colleague put down the phone she turned to me saying: “Well, that was interesting, this woman is about to be evicted, but she actually didn’t sound that bothered.” When I asked my colleague why she thought the woman wasn’t that bothered, she explained: “Well, you know, she sounded calm. Wasn’t rushing through her story or yelling or anything… I mean when I told her I would look into the case she just said ‘that would be great! Oh, and she ended the conversation with ‘Oké, doei doei!”

The surprise expressed by the investigator with regards to the lack of negative emotion the citizen expressed during the interaction emphasizes the normality of an angry and upset citizen in interaction with the ombudsman. This culturalization also became apparent when in discussion with my supervisor I made the following remark. “The first findings are not that interesting, I mean people are mostly angry and desperate. Of course, otherwise they wouldn’t approach the Ombudsman right.” My supervisor answered saying, well why do you think that it so obvious? Why could people not express trust, hope or confidence when they approach the ombudsman?” This interaction clearly illustrated my own culturalization with regards to emotion as I was so familiar with these emotions that even during my research I had to keep reminding myself to de-familiarize the topic.

4.3 Expressions of despair

The other emotion group that emerged as dominant from the fieldwork and the document analysis was that of despair. In the words of Kessous et al (2010), despair is characterized as the “feeling state of being faced with an existential problem, without solution, coupled with a refusal to accept the situation.” What is considered an ‘existential’ problem however varies per person. One complainant for example, showed indicators of intense despair that the municipality did not cut down low hanging branches of a plant in his street. Which is something others perhaps would not have regarded to be of such grave nature. As with the category of anger, several coding labels were grouped under ‘despair’. These are loss of hope, powerlessness, helplessness, but also expressions of panic.

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Despair becomes apparent in both written complaints as well as spoken interaction through different strategies. Citizens often use sayings or metaphors to communicate their despair. The saying most often used was that of ‘standing with my back against the wall”.

W “Ik sta met mijn rug

tegen de muur”

I am standing with my back against the wall

Taking the phrase literally would not necessarily indicate emotion as it can simply describe a physical situation where someone is standing against the wall. In this fragment however it is clearly used figuratively in relation to the municipality not granting the complainants request for a especially designated parking spot for disabled. By drawing up the image of the physical body being trapped with no way out, the complainant powerfully communicates a sense of despair and powerlessness. It also implies a force that keeps him pressed against this wall or hinders him from moving anywhere else. The saying would be far less powerful if the self could just walk some other direction. This indicates a certain skewed power relation, where the narrator is the victim of other agents.

F “Ik sta momenteel op

instorten..”

I’m about to break down. In this fragment the citizen uses the phrase “I’m about to break down’ to indicate the severity of her situation. The context of this fragment was that the woman could not afford to furnish her house for her and her son and therefore had to stay with family. The term ‘breaking down’ finds its origin in mechanics, indicating that a machine stops working completely. The use of this metaphor intensifies the emotional message of the complainant as it references to the inability of the citizen to continue functioning and living their life. Within the context, where the woman had used up her appeals at the municipality without success, it exudes a strong sense of despair.

Another saying used by various complainant is ‘van het kastje naar de muur gestuurd worden’/ ‘being sent from pillar to post’. This is a familiar expression when it comes to people describing their experiences with government bureaucracies. It references a situation where instead of being helped, the citizen is only redirected to another place. It illustrates pointlessness of the activity going from place to place without finding resolution. Depending on the framing of the context this can communicate a sense of despair but also frustration or even anger. Variation on this type of expression lies with

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other metaphors indicating a sense of dependency or being at mercy of a larger structure such as ‘being tossed about’.

W “ik word heen en weer

geslingerd.”

I am being tossed about.

W “van het kastje naar de

muur gestuurd” sent from pillar to post

The most common indicator of despair is found in the citizen vocalizing he does not know what to do anymore. Both in written complaints as well as in office hours interaction citizens communicate, with varying intensity of emotion, the inability to deal with the situation themselves and therefore a sense of powerlessness. This corresponds to Gelbrich’s (2010) description of feelings of helplessness as arising when people have no faith in their ability or general chance to deal with a ‘goal incongruent’ – or in other words undesirable- event (Lazarus 1991). Signals of powerlessness are often accompanied with a request or plea to the ombudsman for help. This explicit request for help was most prevalent in the written complaints.

W Hoe kan ik nu verder? What am I supposed to

do now?

F Ik weet niet meer wat

ik moet doen anymore I don’t know what to do

W Help alstublieft. Please help

Even though there are plenty of example indicating a sense of despair, there certainly are exceptions to this was of positioning. Take for example the phrase that one citizen ended their complaint with:

“Ik ben benieuwd hoe u zich in deze gaat opstellen”

I am curious to see how you will act/take action with regards to this case. Here the citizen summed up a range of events he considered as misconduct on the part of the municipality emphasizing his lack of trust in a resolution. The phrase here does not seem to signal despair, more an extended distrust on yet another government organization. This stands in stark contrast to the pleas for help present in other narratives. In the office hours despair is communicated also by visible distress signs of citizens. For example crying or being fearful.

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Retrospective vs, prospective emotions?

Gelbrich (2010) theorizes that anger is a retrospective emotion and despair a prospective emotion. What emerged from the data analysis in however is that it is not that simple. Emotions are not neatly tied to specific directions or event. Instead often there is overlap, emotions become tied to the entire situation. In my view, emotions are not separate packages. Instead they seem to flow, interact and morph throughout the narrative. Simple example is a complainant who came in angry about not getting financial support, he expressed feelings of desperation regarding how to cope and pay his rent. Then the feelings of despair and powerlessness seemed to make this complainant angry again, because he did not ‘want to feel this way’. In this case feelings of despair intensified the anger the complainant had with the original grievance. This example shows the ‘messiness’ of emotion when it comes to labeling and tying it to a specific evaluation.

4.3 ‘Dit kan toch zo niet!/ This is not fair!’ narratives

Citizens consistently communicate an evaluative narrative of their situation being (handled) unfair by government organizations. From studying the narratives, a pattern of recurring elements emerged that communicate the message ‘this is not fair’ presented as validation for the expressed emotionality. These elements are 1. The self/situation; 2. The (non)action of government 3. Underlying morality of what the government is supposed to do in this situation. These elements are symbolized and explained in table 1.

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