Political affects in public space: normative blind‐spots in non‐representational ontologies

Barnett, Clive

doi:10.1111/j.1475-5661.2008.00298.x

Cited by 163 publications

(116 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…In addition, they characterised the intentional manipulation of inter-personal relations, dispositions, affects and atmospheres by Sure Start personnel and, in time, other parents (cf. Thrift 2004, Barnett 2008. This emotion work (Schrock et al 2004) did present multiple versions of caring, but also precipitated many other outcomes.…”

Section: "All You Can Do Is Get the Kettle On": Small Acts Kind Wordsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Small acts, kind words and “not too much fuss”: Implicit activisms

Horton

Kraftl

2009

Emotion, Space and Society

139

143

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Small acts, kind words and 'not too much fuss' 2 Small acts, kind words and "not too much fuss": implicit activisms AbstractIn this paper, we suggest that social scientists' accounts of 'activism' have too-often tended to foreground and romanticise the grandiose, the iconic, and the unquestionably meaning-ful, to the exclusion of different kinds of 'activism'. Thus, while there is a rich social-scientific literature chronicling a social history of insurrectionary protests and key figures/thinkers, we suggest that there is more to 'activism' (and there are more kinds of 'activism') than this. In short, we argue that much can be learnt from what we term implicit activisms which -being small-scale, personal, quotidian and proceeding with little fanfare -have typically gone uncharted in social-scientific understanding of 'activism'. This paper will reflect upon one example of this kind of 'implicit' activism, by representing findings from interviews undertaken with 150 parents/carers, during an evaluation of a 'Sure Start' Centre in the East Midlands, UK. From these interviews emerged a sense of how the Centre (and the parents/carers, staff and material facilities therein) had come to matter profoundly to these parents/carers. We suggest that these interviews extend and unsettle many social-scientific accounts of 'activism' in three key senses. First: in evoking the specific kinds of everyday, personal, affective bonds which lead people to care. Second: in evoking the kinds of small acts, words and gestures which can instigate and reciprocate/reproduce such care. And third: in suggesting how such everyday, affective bonds and acts can ultimately constitute political activism and commitment, albeit of a kind which seeks to proceed with 'not too much fuss'.

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Section: "All You Can Do Is Get the Kettle On": Small Acts Kind Wordsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Small acts, kind words and “not too much fuss”: Implicit activisms

Horton

Kraftl

2009

Emotion, Space and Society

139

143

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“…Barnett, 2008;Korf, 2012;Leys, 2011;Wetherell, 2012Wetherell, , 2013; for a recent discussion of a feminist critique, see also Schurr, 2014). In the following, I focus on three fundamental points of criticism that relate to the concepts presented above, since a full review would exceed this paper's scope.…”

Section: Conceptualising Affective Atmospheresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Researching affective atmospheres

Michels

2015

Geogr. Helv.

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Abstract. In this contribution, I suggest activating the notion of atmospheres as a heuristic device to empirically research affects. I will argue that analysing the composition of atmospheres allows one to take into account three key dimensions of affects: their spatio-materiality, their sensuality and their (in)stability. Building on a process understanding of atmospheres, I reflect on how each of the three dimensions can be empirically researched and how they interplay in the emergence of atmospheres. I will illustrate these reflections with examples from a current research project on an artistic intervention into public spaces in Berlin.

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“…Barnett (2008) arise from this. This account has also suggested that one such 'understanding' would be to identify particular 'environmentalities,' such as by delineating the sensoria such as shopping malls in which they are manifest, and then, on that basis, developing alternative design principles (Healy 2012) to those currently operative.…”

Section: Affect and Contestationary Activismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Affective Dissent

Healy

2013

CCS Journal

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'there is at least one invariant that means that that the population taken as a whole has one and only one mainspring of action. This is desire…' (Foucault 2007, p. 72).'The ability of affect to produce an economic effect more swiftly and surely than economics itself means that affect is a real condition, an intrinsic variable of the late capitalist system, as infrastructural as a factory' (Massumi 2002a, p. 45).'The status quo is entrenched not only through a common economic logic, but also a common sensorium, which we neglect to our detriment. Neoliberalism entrains us to experience certain emotions over others, suggests rules for their expression, and even tries to define what one is "allowed" to feel for. These everyday flows of feeling-from bodily intensities of relation (affect) to their narrativized accounts (emotion)-habituate us to the cadence of neoliberal subjectivity' (Jensen 2011). AbstractThis article identifies a form of corporeally enacted affective bio-politics more intimately engrained than that identified in recent work emphasising the affective qualities of activism and labour. While these latter reinforce and bolster existing analyses through highlighting affective concerns, the affective bio-politics identified here suggests that neoliberalism is significantly maintained through, what have generally been, unrecognised affective means. While this affective regulation can only ever be partial and imprecise, its unrecognised, and thus implicitly concealed, character lends it a particular strength and cogency. Illuminating the mechanisms through which such affective regulatory modulation is achieved thus has a powerful potential to clarify further opportunities to disrupt and counter neoliberalism. This account juxtaposes an analysis of affective bio-politics with existing analyses of the affective, and performative, dimensions to activist politics, in order to facilitate the identification of specific opportunities for further affective contestationary strategies.

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Political affects in public space: normative blind‐spots in non‐representational ontologies

Cited by 163 publications

References 62 publications

Small acts, kind words and “not too much fuss”: Implicit activisms

Small acts, kind words and “not too much fuss”: Implicit activisms

Researching affective atmospheres

Affective Dissent

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