Emotions and power: a bifocal prescription to cure theoretical myopia

Heaney, Jonathan G

doi:10.1080/2158379x.2013.849367

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…In summary, Pistorius deploys his self, his body (represented this time, as a vulnerable and docile body) and most importantly his emotions to subvert power and re-attain public recognition and reminding us through this case study of the links between emotion and power (Heaney, 2013). He achieves this through the performance of the repentant lover, which enables him to not only appeal to the judge's gender-assumed emotional leniency, but by following from Foucault, it enables him to re-conscribe himself under the gaze of the public as a moral actor.…”

Section: Spatially Amplifying Race Gender and Emotionsmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…The power of the legal institution is therefore enacted through a combination of architectural and technological modalities. In addition, I offer a reconsideration of the architectural space as it contributes to the containment of violence in the South African setting, establishing links between the exercise of power and the expression of emotions (Heaney, 2013). My main argument is that in interactions with these processes, Pistorius used his body alongside his emotionality as technologies of self, to construct a repentant lover performance that helped him transform from an object of power to an agent of power and manipulate the disciplining force of the gaze to achieve a privileged sentencing.…”

Section: Theoretical Backdropmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since he had murdered the person he loves, the only manner through which romantic love could be used in his favour was through publicly expressing regret. These processual operations between love and power worked to create his repentant lover performance, denoting the embodied and gendered links between emotions and power (Heaney, 2013). Pistorius became "more than just a body to be watched" (p. 3, Mackay and Flynn, 2017).…”

Section: Agency Architectural Surveillance and Processes Of Otheringmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To illustrate the links between architectural design and emotions as constitutive elements in the production of power (Heaney, 2013), I focus in this chapter on the highly mediatized case study of the athlete Oscar Pistorius, accused of the murder of his girlfriend, the model Reeva Steenkamp, which took place on the 14 th of February 2013. According to press releases, the case was summarised in lyrical terms by Judge Eric Leah, who in December 2015 re-convicted Pistorius of murder, after the initial sentencing was over-ruled:…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Performing the Repentant Lover in the Courtroom: An Analysis of Oscar Pistorius’ Recreation of Hegemonic Masculinity

Macht

2019

Surveillance, Architecture and Control

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Michel Foucault (1977) presented social theorists with a consideration of power as existing everywhere. Furthermore, Jonathan Heaney (2013) recently asserted that emotions and power should be considered conceptual counterparts. In this chapter, I propose that what Foucault considered the omnipresence of power refers to its deeply social connection to emotions as they are experienced in certain locations. To exemplify, I present an analysis of the trial of Oscar Pistorius as it took place in the High Court of Pretoria. His example is significant as it offers the space to link conceptually romantic love to power, as the famous athlete attempts to recreate his sense of exemplary masculinity through the performance of the repentant lover role, in relation to the courtroom as a discourse of power, enhanced by digital surveillance. The analysis plays on two levels: a) firstly, through his courtroom interactions with the judge, and b) through manipulating the public gaze to his advantage. As such, the televised South African courtroom becomes a space for the portrayal of a power-suffused masculine identity, which is flexibly reconstituted through emotional control and emotional release; in relation to this, the courtroom's design serves as a space for the accused's emotional containment. Lastly, my own self-reflexive involvement in the analysis of the trial contributes to a distinct experience of surveying his performance, reversing the gendered gaze and othering the male self.

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Section: Spatially Amplifying Race Gender and Emotionsmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Theoretical Backdropmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Agency Architectural Surveillance and Processes Of Otheringmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Performing the Repentant Lover in the Courtroom: An Analysis of Oscar Pistorius’ Recreation of Hegemonic Masculinity

Macht

2019

Surveillance, Architecture and Control

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“…Since then, there has been an unprecedented development in the study of affect and emotions across multiple fields. Some scholars refer to this as the ‘emotional turn’ (Heaney, 2014) in social theory. This process had a clear impact on labour studies, where, for the first time, research addressing emotion’s management in the workplace was conducted (Hochschild, 2003; Wouters, 1989), particularly in the service and cultural industries (Grandey, 2000; Hesmondhalgh & Baker, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performers as emotional artisans: Crafting displays in theatre and workload

Kuric

Arenales

2023

The Sociological Review

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In this article, we analyse the process of crafting emotional displays developed by performers in theatre work. The systematic approach to emotion regulation and management displayed in theatre provides a perfect lens for researching emotions in the workplace. This, in turn, provides the possibility of developing a toolkit to analyse a wide range of working experiences where emotions and bodily labour are an intrinsic part of the work. This research draws on a sample of 31 in-depth qualitative interviews with professional Spanish performers alongside ethnographic observations and interviews conducted in two theatre companies. We start by exploring the pathways and techniques adopted by performers to address emotional labour and emotional management in theatre work. Afterwards, focusing on the process of displaying emotions live on stage, we analyse the overlap between the performers’ own emotions and the emotions of the characters they portray, revisiting the limitations of the distinction between the notions of the ‘real’ and the ‘fake’ self in the workplace. Finally, we will turn our attention to the workload generated by emotional labour in theatre, trying to ascertain the main positive and negative outcomes for vocational performers with a working experience heavily focused on emotional labour while dealing with a context marked by precarity. We develop a better understanding of the constant desire to work despite the impossibility of making a living through the concept of emotional artisanship.

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Conceptual framework

Hutchison¹

2016

Affective Communities in World Politics

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Emotions and power: a bifocal prescription to cure theoretical myopia

Cited by 11 publications

References 13 publications

Performing the Repentant Lover in the Courtroom: An Analysis of Oscar Pistorius’ Recreation of Hegemonic Masculinity

Performing the Repentant Lover in the Courtroom: An Analysis of Oscar Pistorius’ Recreation of Hegemonic Masculinity

Performers as emotional artisans: Crafting displays in theatre and workload

Conceptual framework

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