Feminism and the Power of Love by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Sociology
ISBN: 9781351780124
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2018-04-17T04:00:00+00:00

Does affect theory account for not only how but why we should move ‘outside the claims of nationalism’?

The affective turn

Introducing the essays in The Affective Turn: Theorizing the Social, Patricia Clough describes the shift in socio-political critical theory toward studying affect as one where scholars across a range of disciplines have defined ‘affectivity as a substrate of potential bodily responses, often autonomic responses, which are in excess of consciousness’ (2007: 1–2). Put differently, Clough explains, affect theorists understand affect as the ‘pre-personal or pre-individual bodily capacity to affect and be affected or the augmentation or diminution of a body’s capacity to act’ (2007: 1).

Commentators have applauded this shift in focus, suggesting, for different reasons, that it brings much needed attention to the role of the emotions and feelings5 in human (and other animal) behavior, while broadening our understanding of that behavior to include the non-intentional, corporeal experience of material life processes (Bennett 2010; Berlant 2011; Brennan 2004; Connolly 2002; Massumi 2002; Sedgwick 2003).6 In particular, many have welcomed the renewed emphasis on the material or bodily experience of feelings (see Toye’s review in this volume). Yet, others (Barnett 2008; Leys 2011) have raised concerns about affect theorists’ understanding of affective responses as reactions occurring at the sub-personal, non-intentional, autonomic level of material existence. Shifting attention away from meaning in favor of a non-representational conceptualization of affect, in Barnett’s view, means that ‘the critical account of affect makes it difficult to avoid a sense that politics is all about interventions that go on below the threshold of explicit articulation’ (2008: 195) and, without consent, becoming potentially a decidedly anti-democratic way to create an affinity for ‘worldly love’.

Does affect theory help us understand better the dynamics of attachment at work in love? In other words, does affect theory’s ontological proposition that affect is about the body’s pre-conscious attunement and adjustment to its environment offer a sound theoretical foundation for developing an understanding of the energetics of love? What are the political implications of its ontological claims?

Affect theorists interested in politics have concentrated largely on classical activities and arenas of politics, such as the impact of media on shaping public opinion and voting behavior (Connolly 2002), or the design of urban public space (Thrift 2004). Most affect theories of politics have not sufficiently analyzed the gendered dynamics of love and power. Considering the implications of an application of affect theory to the analysis of gender-based violence might help demonstrate the stakes involved in adopting its approach to explain, and ultimately transform, the dynamics of intimate interactions.

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