Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
- Convenors:
-
Yang Yang
(Nanjing University)
Kayla Rush (Dublin City University)
Send message to Convenors
- Discussant:
-
Thomas Stodulka
(Universität Münster)
- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- Peter Froggatt Centre (PFC), 03/005
- Sessions:
- Thursday 28 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel examines the symbiotic, dynamic relationship between affect and domination in diverse contexts, with a particular emphasis on change and motion - on how the relationship between domination and affect shifts due to social and cultural factors.
Long Abstract:
Hopes and fears are periodically amplified and intensified, as the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic seems to sustain itself through its newest and strongest variants of the virus. If we view the pandemic as domination, this biological metaphor is striking in terms of the symbiotic, dynamic relationship between affect and social, cultural, and political domination: the particular forms of affect and domination are in flux, but the correlation between affect and domination is strong, as demonstrated by, for example, Sara Ahmed, Yael Navaro-Yashin, and Ulla Berg and Ana Ramos-Zayas. In this panel, we understand 'domination' broadly and intersectionally, and we welcome papers examining the dynamic interplay of affect and domination as it relates to relationships among individuals; between people, places, and environments; between humans, non-humans, and material objects; and between individual and state actors.
Examples might include the dominated affect observed when UK artists activate their enduring mechanisms under conditions of marginalisation, fierce competition, hierarchy, exploitation, and social inequality; or the complex interplay of hopefulness, resignation, voice, and relative lack of political agency when Irish young people discuss climate change. We invite contributions exploring the following questions:
1) How and where does the dynamic relationship between affect and domination manifest itself?
2) What are the limits of terms such as 'resilience' and 'resistance' in explaining contemporary perseverance and protracted struggles in the face of domination?
3) How are individuals, groups, and protest movements harnessing the language and performativity of affect to address pressing social, political, and public health questions?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 28 July, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
How did it feel to be evicted? This paper, based on fieldwork on the cultural production of a couple of memory-making projects on the displaced inhabitants of Singapore's Southern Islands goes beyond the outpouring of nostalgia to listen closely to the suppressed affects.
Paper long abstract:
How did it feel to be evicted? And then to see the island that was once your home turned into a rubbish dump, an oil refinery, or a firing range for the military air force? Such were the experiences of entire communities, a generation ago, who once lived on about a dozen little islands off the southern coast of Singapore. While many of the islanders struggled to adjust to a life away from the sea, and in the urban centres, their struggles and voices were barely audible. Overshadowing them are narratives of “sacrifices” for the national good and how modernization is “inevitable”. These, in turn, manages the affect by offering hope for a better future and justification for the eviction.
But what happens when a younger generation of Singaporeans, many of whom divorced from the embodied experience of eviction, revisit this history? This paper is a work in progress based on fieldwork on the cultural production of a couple of memory-making projects. Going beyond the outpouring of nostalgia in the process and listening carefully to the suppressed affects. The domination of these works as an aspect of governance and control.
Paper short abstract:
In my research with university teachers in Rotterdam (NL) on inclusion, racism and inequality, discomfort was a recurring topic. But what does being uncomfortable mean, and who can linger in it? In relation to the Dutch concept of ‘gezellig’ (cosy) I explore discomfort as racialized affect.
Paper long abstract:
In my research with higher education teachers in Rotterdam (NL), discomfort was a recurring topic in conversations about inclusion, racism and inequality. My interlocutors described discomfort as lack of control, a state to rather avoid. Yet, they saw it as inherently connected to the hard work of diversity, to which they were committed. Discussing sensitive topics in class or with colleagues would inevitably lead to feelings of discomfort of one or more participants.
In the Netherlands, the opposite of (collective) discomfort in the Netherlands can be expressed as ‘gezellig’ or ‘gezelligheid’, an indication of cosiness or niceness – a positive feeling of togetherness. However, gezellig, as a favored (collective) state of being, also includes a normative and disciplining stance: a boundary that should not be crossed.
If gezellig is seen as a preferred state, how do teachers engaging in matters of racism, inclusion and inequality, balance gezelligheid with discomfort? I wonder if discomfort could be a conscious and calculated affect.
In other words, what does it mean to be uncomfortable? Who is making a call to be uncomfortable, and to whom? Who can linger in this affective position, who can’t? If there is an option to choose, for whom? I wonder if discomfort actually can be a comfortable position for some. Contrary to a general idea, as expressed by my interlocutors, of inevitable, necessary, and being at risk, being ‘uncomfortable’ might excuse someone from doing the hard work of diversity, turning discomfort instead into a racialized affect.
Paper short abstract:
Engaging the limits of political agency in an utterly restrictive setting, I propose the concept of ‘affective agency’ as a revolt against social, legal, and political exclusion by including oneself into the realm of meaning.
Paper long abstract:
How are affect and domination intertwined in the moody space of the prison, and what are the possibilities for action in a disenfranchised setting? To explore these questions, I zoom in on one decisive moment in the long process of deportation (Drotbohm and Hasslberg 2015), namely the stay in a female detention center, and describe the role of affects and moods in volatile encounters between detainees, volunteers, and the researcher. Through an experienced-based approach, I explore the emotional pressure detained migrants are exposed to when their future is determined by uncertainty and focus on fleeting instances, fragile relationships, and the rather unspoken, latent, and subtle moments in fieldwork encounters. Proposing the concept of ‘affective agency,’ I argue that in a highly restrictive setting that curtails the impact of one’s actions and constantly threatens one’s future, the affective response becomes the last resort to resist. Thereby, I conceptualize ‘affective agency’ as a revolt against social, legal, and political exclusion by including oneself into the realm of meaning. It is both a radical questioning of our world and a relentless assertion of one’s singularity as a dignified human being. ‘Affective agency’ is thus not a deliberate political project and might not initiate socio-political transformation; rather, it is a call to be socially recognized and acknowledged.
Paper short abstract:
Muslims in the UK must endure not only the fear and stress of a pandemic but also the increasing threat-based narratives of the UK government and media. Securitising and criminalizing policies and proposed policies create fear about and within Muslim communities, causing harm.
Paper long abstract:
Muslim communities in the UK, representing several identities both claimed and put onto them, have endured myriad fears during the pandemic, during which security has been heightened. This paper examines the amplification of affect for Muslim communities during Covid-19. Viewing pandemic affect as domination means viewing fear-based securitising policy and policing as integral to the domination. The pandemic has served as impetus to sound alarms on various fear-based narratives in the UK, bringing to the forefront securitising and criminalising projects. Political and media language conveying threats have become intertwined with pandemic messaging, including about immigration and border control and counter-terror. Such messaging translates into policies restricting civil liberties and even infringing on human rights for some to guarantee "safety" for others. Brown and black bodies are inculcated as threatening vectors of violence, extremist ideologies, and disease, which are interpolated onto and bounded with various Muslim identities.An affect of domination is put upon Muslims in Britain by both proposed and implemented policy, creating and sustaining Muslim fear of criminals, terrorists, disease, and dangerous outsiders, but also feeding internal fears which are symbolically violent, including fearing Muslimness itself, and fearing those attempting to prove themselves as acceptable "good Muslims" as threatening, as they might be reporting or otherwise participating in Islamophobic policy processes and enforcements (Abbas 2019; Mamdani 2002; Bordieu 2003). It is not necessarily the policy that dominates, but the ways it creates fear within and about the Muslim community.