Questioning Affect and Emotion

Author(s): Ben Anderson and Paul Harrison

Source: Area, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Sep., 2006), pp. 333-335
Published by: Wiley on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British
Geographers)
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Area (2006) 38.3, 333-335

Commentary

Questioning affect and emotion

Ben Anderson and Paul Harrison

DepartmentofGeography,UniversityofDurham, Durham DH1 3LE
Email: Ben.anderson@durham.ac.uk

Revised manuscript received 2March 2006

subject.A consequence of thismove 'afteror beyond

Introduction
What does itmean tooffera theoryof affectand emo
tion? In the context of thisbrief response toDeborah
Thien's 'Afteror beyond feeling?A consideration of
affectand emotion ingeography' (2005), we reflect
on thisquestion. Indoing so our aim is to respond to
what we feelare problematicaspects ofThien's critique
by posing a numberof questions around thedefinition
of 'the emotional' which appear to us as vital to
geographer's developing engagementwith the topic.
However, before posing these questions, we want
to emphasize thatwe write thisresponse fromwithin a
on affectand emotionwithingeography
diverse literature
and othersocial sciences. IndistinctiontoThien,we do
notperceive thisliterature as 'discourage[ing]
an engage
ment with everyday emotional subjectivities' nor do
we thinkthatitfallsinto 'a familiarpatternof distancing
emotions from"reasonable" scholarship' (2005, 450).
Indeed,we believe thata surveyof recentwork proves
quite the contrary.From the attentionto performance
and practice that defines non-representational
theories(e.g. Harrison 2000; Wylie 2002; Dewsbury
2003; Latham2003; Anderson2004) throughtowork on
affectand thecompositionof the social (e.g.Grossberg
1997; Gibson-Graham et al. 2000; Munoz 2000;
McKay 2004), there isnow a surfeitofwork on every
day life.Our point here is that in drawing on only
two sources - McCormack (2003) and Thrift(2004)
- and thoseveryselectively,Thien runsthe riskof only
being able to secure her critique by caricaturingand
reifyingan emergent area of research.
More or less emotional?
One of the main charges made by Thien is that
'recentwork' on affecthas passed over the human
humanity' (p. 450), Thien suggests, is the formation
of a politicswhich is 'masculinist, technocraticand
distancing' (p. 452) and insensitiveto the 'emotional
landscapes of daily life' (p. 453). While at no stage
does Thien advance a positive definitionof emotion
as such, she interpretsemotions as primarilymea
ningful in terms of their being inter-subjectiveor
'relational' phenomena. However there is a pro
blem here. On the one hand the potential political
'positivity' (p. 453) of emotions is determined as
arising from the way in which a 'giving voice'
(p. 453) to the emotional allows for the recoveryof
marginalized subject positions. However, on the
other, and somewhat surprisingly,Thien asserts -
via Harding and Pribram (2002) - that 'emotional
acts' are 'part and parcel of the reproduction of
... specific categories of subjects and the power
relationswhich constitute them' (quoted p. 453).
Surprising not only as this claim contradicts the
invocationof the political 'positivity'
of an 'emotional
subject', but also because of the implication that
emotions functionas symptomsof a pre-constituted
social structure. Despite the referenceto JudithButler
(p. 453), emotions are cast here as purely constative
and denied a performativeaspect, that is to say,
emotions are described as significantinsofaras they
mediate and replicate wider social categories. Yet
this account has the consequence of establishing
such categories as causal or explanatory, a move
that runs the risk of naturalizing the categories it
sets out to critique and, somewhat ironicallygiven
the critique of work on affect,of casting emotions
primarily in terms of a somewhat automated
'reproduction' (p. 453) of these categories.
Beyond these issues,what we findodd about the
apprehension of emotion being forwarded here is

ISSN 0004-0894 ? The Authors.

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334 Commentary

how it seems to be almost exclusively directed at aspect of human experience? Could there be an
continuing - in social scientific terms- 'business as affectualor emotional geography of animals? And,
usual'. To illustratethis claim, and in the hope of ifso,what is thepurpose indescribing emotions as
opening the themes of emotion and affect to more 'emphaticallyhuman' (p. 450)?
diverse engagements,we want to ask the following
threequestions: Each of these questions are, forus, indicativeof how
affect and emotion can and perhaps should pose
1 Are emotions a distinctaspect of human existence? problems to the conduct of social analysis. None of
On the one hand, Thien presupposes this insofar which, itseems to us, amounts to a disavowal of the
as emotionsmay be a distincttopicof study(i.e. the human or the social, nor does itdelimit and then
subject/objectof emotional geographies).However, deny a 'feminized "personal"' (p. 452), rathereach
on theother, she suggests thatthere isno aspect of question invitesa greaterengagementwith thenature,
human existence that iswithout emotion (p. 453). conditions and possibilitiesof emotional lives.
The problem here is that, if the latter, then all
speech 'givesvoice' toemotionand Thien's approach
reveals itselfto be one which isnot primarilycon Conclusion
cerned with emotions but with social categories To conclude, we would like to offer four
and subject positions therein. Which isall well and propositions for the theorization of affect and
good, but is thisan emotional geography or rather emotion.With these propositionswe do not mean
a social geography which uses emotions as its to determine a specific form of theoretical and
empirical moment? If it is to be the formerthen empirical engagement, but rather indicate broad
some form of positive statement about what fields fordiverse engagements. As we put forward
emotions are or are notmust be advanced - even if these propositions, it is worth noting that just as
multiple and only offeredto be subject to revision. McCormack and Thriftdiffer in their accounts of
2 What does itmean to suggest that emotions are affect and emotion, we differ in ours (compare
'relational'?Understood as an analytic position, a Anderson 2006 and Harrison 2006).
relational approach describes all phenomena as
relational.For us, definingemotions as relational is 1 A theoryof affectand emotion must engage with
not the critical step, ratherthis lies in asking the questions ofmateriality.Be this in termsof body
more complex question of the how of different brain-culture assemblages or our intimate and
emotional relations, i.e. of thedifferencesbetween prosaic entanglementswith theobject world,we do
love and hate and between this love and other not see how such a theorycan proceed without
loves.Without thisattention to differenceswithin beginning to distribute the composition of affect
and between emotions, an attention to theirgene and emotion throughouttheworld, through,for
alogies, conditional ities,potentialities,material ities example, the nervous system, hormones, hands,
and so on, we are leftwith an amorphous object love letters,screens, crowds, money . . Without
.
called 'the emotional' which risks obscuring such an acknowledgmentof thespacing of emotion
exactlywhat itpurportsto reveal. and affect,any theory runs the riskof idealistic
3 What does itmean toground emotions inthe figure reification.
of thehuman?We ask thisquestion because despite 2 A theoryof affectand emotion should provoke a
the referencesto relationality,Thien's ontological rethinking of the nature of the subject or subjects.
and political agendas are based inhumanism. For Not only in termsof thedistributionsnoted above,
Thien, emotions are 'a fundamentalaspect of human but because of the radical openness which being
experience' (p. 451) and it is the recoveryof these capable of or subject to emotions presupposes.
experiences that constitutes emotion's potential Here, thinkingthroughaffectand emotion should
worth to geography. However, thisbegs a host of lead toquestionsover theemergenceof subjectivities
questions, not leastconcerning the implicituniver frommore or lessunwilled affectualand emotional
salism and putative authenticityallotted to 'the assemblages and the consequences of such ques
emotional'. Questions like, forexample, are emo tions for reflexivity,responsibility, intentionality,
tions the same foreveryone everywhere?What of autonomy and identity.
'idiomatic' emotional categorieswhich resisttrans 3 A theoryof affectand emotion could experiment
lation? Are emotions to be just a fundamental with vocabularies specific to the objects of study.

ISSN 0004-0894 ? The Authors.

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 Commentary 335

Whether this involves engaging with the silences theory of affect Environment and Planning D: Society and
of testimony, the contagion and transmissionof Space 24 (forthcoming)

collective affects,or the forceof signification,ways DewsburyJ-D2003Witnessingspace: knowledgewithout

need to be found to describe realms of existence contemplation Environment and PlanningA 35 1907-32
Gibson-Graham I K, Resnick S and Wolff R eds 2000 Class and
which are irreducible to, but exist in complex
itsothers University ofMinnesota Press,Minneapolis/London
relationswith, discursive and ideological orders.
Grossberg L 1997 Bringing itall back home: essays on culture
Hence rather than seeking to translate different studiesDuke University Press,DurhamNC
semantic registersand arrays into the standard Harding l and Pribram E 2002 The power of feeling: locating
lexicons of social science, attentioncould be paid emotions in culture European Journal of Cultural Studies 5
to thedisclosive possibilities in,forexample, expert 407-26
terminologies, ethno-psychological vocabularies, Harrison P 2000 Making sense: embodiment and the sensi
poetic registersand narrativestructures. bilities oftheeveryday Environmentand Planning D: Society
4 A theoryof affectand emotion invitesotherpolitical and Space 18 497-51 9

practices and definitionsof thepolitical, ones that Harrison P 2006 'How shall I say it?' Relating the non
relational Environment and PlanningA 38 (forthcoming)
do not necessarily relyon the 'successful'discursive
Latham A 2003 Research, performance, and doing human
symbolization of a putative identityas theircon
geography: some reflections on the diary-photo diary
dition of possibility.Here we are thinkingof, for interview methodEnvironmentand PlanningA 35 1993-2017
example, the logicsof affectiveintervention enacted McCormack D 2003 An event of geographical ethics in
throughgenerosity, hospitality, trust,friendship, spaces of affect Transactions of the Institute of British
solidarity,respector responsibility. Geographers28 488-507
McKay D 2004 Migration and the sensuous geographies of
inthePhilippinesJournal
re-emplacement of Intercultural
Acknowledgement Studies 26 75-91
Munoz I 2000 Feeling brown: ethnicity and affect inRicardo
We would like to thank Deborah Thien for sharing a version
Bracho's The Sweetest Hangover (and Other STDs) Theatre
of her paper prior to publication.
Journal 52 67-79
Thien D 2005 After or beyond feeling? A consideration of
affect and emotion in geography Area 37 450-4
References
Thrift N 2004 Intensities of feeling: towards a spatial politics
Anderson B 2004 Time-stilled space-slowed: how boredom of affect Geografiska Annaler B 86 57-78
matters
Geoforum35 739-54 Wylie 12002 An essay on ascending Glastonbury Tor Geoforum
Anderson B 2006 Becoming and being hopeful: towards a 32 441-55

ISSN 0004-0894 ? The Authors.

Journal compilation ? Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers) 2006

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