Nexus of Emotional and Development Geographies

Abstract

Recently, the nexus of international development and emotion has received increasing attention from diverse sectors. While scholars from postcolonial, post-structural, and feminist perspectives have long called for increased attention to emotions and the more-than-rational, more recent pieces such as the World Bank's World Development Report 2015 on Mind, Society, and Behavior have also taken up the refrain that "emotions matter" in development. Whether viewed as motivating factors, explanatory devices, or phenomena to be harnessed and manipulated, emotions are emerging as a key piece in development theory and practice. This paper critically analyzes the ways in which the nexus of emotion and development has been conceptualized from various perspectives. In particular, it raises questions related to geographies of power and control and highlights the implications of this emotional turn for both the theory and practice of development.

Towards an emotional geoeconomics? Masculinity and emotions among Mexican and Guatemalan temporary agricultural workers in Quebec

“…The acknowledgement that humans are "more-than-rational" and that emotions form a central aspect of human subjectivity is slowly acknowledged in social science, including geography (Clouser, 2016). Accordingly, engaging with emotions as both a topic of study and as an integral part of all aspects of the research process is becoming more common (Davidson et al, 2007).…”

Exploring the affective dimension of climate adaptation discourse: Political fantasies in German adaptation policy

“…While psychoanalytical notions of the subject and their implications for fantasy have in recent years gained growing interest in a number of academic fields across the social sciences including in ethnography, sociology, human geography, international relations, political ecology, spatial planning, and development studies (Eberle, 2017; Glynos and Stavrakakis, 2008; Gunder and Hillier, 2009; Kapoor, 2014; Robbins and Moore, 2013; Sjöstedt Landén et al, 2017; Warner et al, 2019), in the context of adaptation policy analysis, they have been largely underexplored, theoretically and empirically. Most analyses tend to take a rationalist approach to policy norms, discourse and meaning, assuming that adaptation happens in an ‘ emotionally free vacuum ’ (Clouser, 2016: 322). A telling example is Vogel and Hengstra (2015), who lay out a research agenda for comparative analysis of local adaptation policy which in no instance mentions the influence of emotions on policy development (the same goes for Dolšak and Prakash, 2018).…”

Understanding power in development studies through emotion and affect: promising lines of enquiry

“…Rather than being irrelevant to policy and practice however, research inattentive to affect and emotions offers only anaemic accounts of social worlds, and partial understandings of social problems and solutions (Anderson and Smith 2001). In the field of development, there is now a sense among academics (Clouser 2016;Wright 2012) and institutions such as the World Bank (2015) that 'emotions' matter, for both understandings of development, and, improving development praxis. Further, as Baillie Smith and Jenkins (2012) note, development studies is in many ways an emotive field, as scholars (and practitioners) are often passionate to do good.…”

“…Important moves have been made to underline the usefulness of emotions and affect as analytical tools to understand development (Clouser 2016;Wright 2012). The aim of this special issue is to build upon this previous work and put forward a research agenda to further scholarship in the emotional and affective dimensions of development.…”