Social Relationships and Emotions

Abstract

In this article I propose a relational understanding of emotions which I believe overcomes many of the dualisms in previous sociological attempts to understand this realm of social life. I also suggest that it is rare in such studies for the object under scrutiny to be defined, and attempt to answer the question of what it is we are exploring when we approach emotions. The view is put forward of emotions as complexes rather than things, ones that are multi-dimensional in their composition: they only arise within relationships, but they have a corporeal, embodied aspect as well as a socio-cultural one. They are constituted by techniques of the body learned within a social habitus, which produces emotional dispositions that may manifest themselves in particular situations. Furthermore, these techniques of the body are part of the power relations that play an important part in the production and regulation of emotion. Using examples of emotions like love and aggression, I argue my central thesis - that emotions are not expressions of inner processes, but are modes of communication within relationships and interdependencies.

Affect and discourse – What’s the problem? From affect as excess to affective/discursive practice

“…My general approach is based on the concept of affective practice (Wetherell, 2012, in press) and on the application of practice theories (for example, Burkitt, 1997Burkitt, , 2002Crossley, 2001Crossley, , 2006Schatzki et al, 2001;Reckwitz, 2002) to domains of emotion. I assume that the topic in social research on human affect and emotion is usually (and mostly unavoidably) articulations and recruitments of affect and meaning-making, and that social research requires methods that deal with entanglements of embodiment and discourse.…”

Cartas de reclamação: polidez ou cordialidade?

“…A expressão de emoções fortes e negativas corresponde, em termos de face, a uma projeção do tratamento que está sendo dispensado já que as culturas se organizam segundo alguns princípios morais em torno dos quais as pessoas esperam ser valorizadas e tratadas adequadamente (GOFFMAN, 1996(GOFFMAN, [1985). Para Burkitt (1997), as emoções e os comportamentos, sejam agressivos ou não, são resultantes das interações e só têm um impacto sobre a vida social porque são nela e por ela constituídas.…”

Affect revisited: Transference–countertransference and the unconscious dimensions of affective, felt and emotional experience

“…In the first of these pieces he was particularly concerned with the sociology of emotion which he took to task for, as he saw it, its failure to address embodiment; its tendency to ignore work on affect, feelings and emotion in other disciplines; and its inability to recognise the existence of a contradictory 'internal' world of feeling-laden, unconscious experience. Among a number of responses that appeared in the wake of this assault, the most detailed was by Ian Burkitt (1997). In an argument he developed further in subsequent work (Burkitt 2002(Burkitt , 2005, Burkitt sought to navigate a path that, like Craib's, went decisively beyond accounts of cultural inscription but which, in contrast to the latter's psychoanalytic approach, firmly rejected the notion of the unconscious.…”

“…In common with Craib's own orientations, the versions of psychoanalysis I will be exploring are ones that inform the mainstream of current clinical practice -in this case, post-Kleinian object relations theory and the US relational tradition (see, for example, Benjamin 2004;Chodorow, 1999;Ogden, 1983). However, rather than revisit the detail of Craib's argument, my strategy will be, first, to sketch some of the main aspects of Burkitt's multi-dimensional approach to affect, feeling and emotion (specifically, as this is outlined in Burkitt 1997Burkitt , 2002) and then to interrogate this via a relational understanding of the concept of transference-countertransference.…”