Abstract:This paper re-examines the sociological study of resistance in light of growing interest in the concept of affect. Recent claims that we are witness to an 'affective turn' and calls for a 'new sociological empiricism' sensitive to affect indicate an emerging paradigm shift in sociology. Yet, mainstream sociological study of resistance tends to have been largely unaffected by this shift. To this end, this paper presents a case for the significance of affect as a lens by which to approach the study of resistance… Show more
“…Affect theorists often refer to this as ‘virtual’ reality. Hynes (: 565) argues that … unstructured and unformed affective relations may not be immediately empirically graspable, but they do have a virtual reality … [which] … points the way toward a new understanding of change and of the potentially transformative effects of forces not yet captured in subjective forms.…”
Section: The Affective ‘Reality’ Of the Future Event: ‘What If What mentioning
This article demonstrates the sociological possibilities of using affect. In particular the discussion rises to the methodological challenges posed by affect theories when attempting to undertake empirical research. Drawing on ethnographic data from a study of Brian Lobel's Fun with Cancer Patients art exhibition, it is argued that the development of critically entangled methods, attentive to fleeting, partial, complex and often 'inaccessible' knowledge and experiences, is necessary. In Fun with Cancer Patients the aesthetic event offered opportunities for art participants and visitors to engage with different discourses and subjectivities around cancer. An affective lens makes this engagement intelligible. The analysis contributes to 'live sociology', demonstrating that developing live methods attentive to affect can provide insight into the political potential of aesthetic encounters.The aesthetic encounter presents a conceptual opening for imagining an immanent critique beyond judgement, which, through attentiveness to affective intensities, carries with it creative possibilities for dislocating the binding naturalized and takenfor-granted distributions of value inherent to particular social formations and modes of subjectivity. (Means, 2011(Means, : 1090 This paper takes seriously the proposition that aesthetic encounters have the potential to redistribute the sensory world, making different thoughts, emotions, knowledges, subjectivities and social formations possible (see Rancière, 2004;Panagia, 2009). Such a proposition relies on the analysis of complex, often seemingly inaccessible realms of experience, sensory engagement and affect. Within mainstream sociology, interest in affect is growing: this article develops and extends recent debates within this journal (see
“…Affect theorists often refer to this as ‘virtual’ reality. Hynes (: 565) argues that … unstructured and unformed affective relations may not be immediately empirically graspable, but they do have a virtual reality … [which] … points the way toward a new understanding of change and of the potentially transformative effects of forces not yet captured in subjective forms.…”
Section: The Affective ‘Reality’ Of the Future Event: ‘What If What mentioning
This article demonstrates the sociological possibilities of using affect. In particular the discussion rises to the methodological challenges posed by affect theories when attempting to undertake empirical research. Drawing on ethnographic data from a study of Brian Lobel's Fun with Cancer Patients art exhibition, it is argued that the development of critically entangled methods, attentive to fleeting, partial, complex and often 'inaccessible' knowledge and experiences, is necessary. In Fun with Cancer Patients the aesthetic event offered opportunities for art participants and visitors to engage with different discourses and subjectivities around cancer. An affective lens makes this engagement intelligible. The analysis contributes to 'live sociology', demonstrating that developing live methods attentive to affect can provide insight into the political potential of aesthetic encounters.The aesthetic encounter presents a conceptual opening for imagining an immanent critique beyond judgement, which, through attentiveness to affective intensities, carries with it creative possibilities for dislocating the binding naturalized and takenfor-granted distributions of value inherent to particular social formations and modes of subjectivity. (Means, 2011(Means, : 1090 This paper takes seriously the proposition that aesthetic encounters have the potential to redistribute the sensory world, making different thoughts, emotions, knowledges, subjectivities and social formations possible (see Rancière, 2004;Panagia, 2009). Such a proposition relies on the analysis of complex, often seemingly inaccessible realms of experience, sensory engagement and affect. Within mainstream sociology, interest in affect is growing: this article develops and extends recent debates within this journal (see
“…In speaking of The Artist is Present as an affective event, I do not primarily mean to valorize the emotional dimensions of the event. Rather, and as I have argued elsewhere, the real significance of a Deleuze/Spinozan account of affect is that it is not meant as a metaphysics of substance but as a philosophy of expression (Hynes, ; Hynes and Sharpe, ; Hynes, ). Such a view of affect thus cannot be recruited toward a philosophy or sociology of ‘the subject’ without losing much of its force.…”
In the face of increasing calls for sociology to demonstrate its public relevance, it is necessary to question cherished understandings of what so-called Public Sociology should look like. This paper advances an understanding of sociology that is ontologically oriented toward a world of rapidly emerging and often unfamiliar social realities, with an eye to producing new ways of understanding the discipline's authority vis a vis 'the public.' In experimenting with alternate conceptualisations of sociology, its public and their relation, I turn to a social, and specifically artistic, event for inspiration; namely, Marina Abramović's performance of The Artist is Present at the Museum of Modern Art. While the artist and the social scientist clearly work with differing possibilities and constraints, the performance indicates a novel way in which authority might be mobilised. Wheras the debate around public sociology normally centres on the figure of the expert, Abramović's performance give rise to a new authority, intimately bound up with the age old sociological concepts of charisma and the gift. This highly experimental performance points the way toward a more affectively open and productive relationship between author and public.
“…Th e understanding of motivation presented above exceeds the aff ective concept of resistance described by Hynes (2013). Hynes mainly focuses on the potentiality of aff ect, which marginalises the aspect of action, which is key in the conducted analyses, from the deliberations on resistance, and empathizes the aspect of the "capacity to aff ect and be aff ected" (p. 567).…”
Section: Motivation Dimension Of Resistancementioning
confidence: 99%
“…Th e space of representation and the space of production (Hynes, 2013) create another signifi cant continuum of the analysis of resistance acts. In the sphere of representation, there are acts of resistance based on language and symbols imposed by dominating structures.…”
Section: Spaces Of Displaying Opposition Actsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Th e presented outline is an attempt to create an analytical tool for describing acts of resistance that occur mostly in educational space. Th e model proposed in this article extends beyond the existing models of resistance because it does not focus solely on the relation between the subjects participating in the act of resistance, as in the model by Hollander and Einwohner (2004), it is not only limited to the aff ective aspect being the primary aspect in the analyses of opposition actions, as in the model by Hynes (2013), and it does not limit defi ning resistance dimensions in the context of power, as in the concept of multidimensional character of resistance by Johansson and Vinthagen (2014). Th e model in this article is an attempt to combine and develop the aforementioned proposals.…”
Th e article attempts to systematize the issue of resistance manifestations in the context of education. Th e analyses presented in the article are an introduction to designing a three-dimensional model of resistance, which enables to examine acts of resistance from the angle of their three intertwined aspects: action, space and motivation. Th ey are basic layers determining the analysis range of particular displays of resistance in education and society. Th ese dimensions were developed based on the analysis of theoretical and empirical literature regarding the issue of resistance and on the author's own research on this phenomenon.
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