Emotions and institutions: Insights from Bourdieu and psychoanalysis

We contribute to the literature on institutional work by arguing for the importance of including analyses of emotional and unconscious processes in the study of how individuals create, maintain and disrupt institutions. Drawing on the insights from Bourdieu and psychoanalytic theory, we develop a framework, whose main components include emotional capital, emotional habitus, and fantasy. We use this framework to theorize the emotional aspects of institutional work, specifically the factors that make individuals more likely to engage in maintaining the existing institutional order and those that support individuals' attempts to create new institutions or disrupt current ones. We conclude by discussing implications of our framework for further studies of institutional work.