The Politics of Affective Societies

Abstract

The series EmotionCultures is a collection of works centered around current questions raised in interdisciplinary and innovative research on emotions. At the core are empirical studies from Social and Cultural Anthropology that analyze processes of social and cultural modeling of emotions -always in close theoretical as well as methodological connection to various other disciplines. Key topics concern the generation of emotional codes in interaction with socio-cultural, historical, and political structures. Thus, this series ranges from the socialization of emotions in childhood to their transformation with increasing age. It incorporates reconfigurations of emotions against the backdrop of changing life conditions. Furthermore, a particular focus rests upon the emotional dynamics inherent to processes of migration, globalization, and transnationalization.The series is edited by Birgitt Röttger-Rössler and Anita von Poser.

The Beauty of Feeling

“…Political theorist Chantal Mouffe (2006) has underscored that passions are important drivers in political mobilization and clout. Within an emerging scholarship on the affective implications of politics (Bens et al, 2019), or the governing of affect (e.g., Penz & Sauer, 2020), my investigation shall contribute to better grasping concretely felt and practiced connections between passions (or emotions and/or affects) and politics (encompassing both politics and the political, including political claims, rules, laws, institutions, but also political mo(ve)ments, actors, collectivities, and forms of political expression outside of the formalized realm of politics). Following Protevi (2009), I concur that political affects can leverage new forms and articulations of political belonging, agency, community or collectivity.…”

Sensing Collectives

“…Political theorist Chantal Mouffe (2006) has underscored that passions are important drivers in political mobilization and clout. Within an emerging scholarship on the affective implications of politics (Bens et al, 2019), or the governing of affect (e.g., , my investigation shall contribute to better grasping concretely felt and practiced connections between passions (or emotions and/or affects) and politics (encompassing both politics and the political, including political claims, rules, laws, institutions, but also political mo(ve)ments, actors, collectivities, and forms of political expression outside of the formalized realm of politics). Following Protevi (2009), I concur that political affects can leverage new forms and articulations of political belonging, agency, community or collectivity.…”

The Cultural Politics of Affect and Emotion

“…It is necessary, here, to introduce the third strand of inquiry to affect that foregrounds the sociality, relationality and situatedness of affect and emotion Burkitt, 2014;Kahl, 2019). This is found predominantly in cultural studies, media and communication studies and anthropology, forms part of the theoretical framework of this book, and proposes that,…”

“…In other words, instead of asking who is affecting whom in a given situation, this angle on affect calls for a fundamentally sociocultural (and research-amenable) exploration of how a relational dynamic of affecting and being affected evolves in such a multiplicity and variety of affective apparatuses and mediations (cf. Slaby & von Scheve, 2019;Kahl, 2019). The focus of attention is on the generative process when the boundaries of individuals and collectives become consolidated or transformed.…”