Heroic Efforts

Members of volunteer search and rescue teams often drop their daily routines at a moment's notice to aid people they have never met. A call might pull them from bed in the dead of night to comb rugged backcountry for a missing hiker, or send them away from the office to probe avalanche-prone slopes for skiers, snowboarders, and snowmobilers caught in a blizzard. Some step into genuine peril to pull chilled, stranded kayakers and rafters out of rough water.

Jennifer Lois spent six years observing and interviewing members of Peak, a volunteer team that responds to emergencies in mountain terrain. Her study looks at the shared emotional world of the group. Rescuers had to contend with more than physical hazards: they had to hold their own feelings steady during emergencies and also handle the feelings of the people they were saving. Lois also explores how these volunteers made sense of their lives and came to see themselves through the heroic nature of their work.

The book also works as an accessible sociological primer on how emotions form and tie individuals to the world around them. It draws out connections between heroism and other sociological ideas, including theories about gender stereotypes and edgework.

The study received the 2006 Outstanding Recent Contribution Award from the American Sociological Association's Sociology of Emotions Section.