ESSAY #1 – Politics of Affect

Affect theory has recently become a burgeoning field of study. In the most basic of definitions, affect is the visceral force that is around the body, something that is not consciously known, yet it can influence our movements, thoughts, and the way one relates to other people and objects. Many theorist from a wide variety of academic disciplines have contributed to the field of affect studies. This essay will look at selected works of Nigel Thrift, Deborah Gould, and Ruth Leys to show how they have contributed to the development of affect studies. The essay will also aim to show how they might differ or agree on certain concepts within affect theory amongst other prominent affect theorist.

Nigel Thrift is a leading academic in the field of human geography and has made significant contributions to the field of affect. His article, Intensities of Feelings: Towards a Spatial Politics of Affect, attempts to show that the politics of affect are central to the life of cities, given that cities are inhuman or trans-human entities and that politics is understood as a process of community without unity (Thrift, 2004, p. 57). For Thrift, affect is an object or subject of manipulation, and it is closely tied to power and how it operates, affective life and emotional life is the setting for operation of power. He states “…it is so crucial to address affect now: in at least one guise the discovery of new means of practising affect is also the discovery of a whole new means of manipulation by the powerful (Thrift, 2004, p.58). This shows that for Thrift, affect and power share a complex relationship, one which can bring about a new way of exploitation, and since affect is at such a visceral state it can potentially go unchecked. Thrift, early in his article, highlights one of the problems in writing about affect theory, he writes that there is “no stable definition of affect” (Thrift, 2004, p. 59). Thrift is able to define affect by using the work of other prominent scholars. He uses the theoretical frameworks, and critiques of prominent scholars of affect such as Jack Katz, Eve Sedgwick, Silvan Tomkins, Spinoza, Gillian Deluze, and Brian Massumi, this allows him to narrow down his definition of affect to four different approaches. Thrift’s definition of affect is not based on individualized emotions, such as happiness, or fear. He states “it is extremely important to note that none of these approaches could be described as based on a notion of human individuals coming together in community. Rather, inline with my earlier work, each cleaves to an ‘inhuman’ or ‘trans-human’ framework in which individuals are generally understood of effects of the events to which their body parts (broadly understood) respond and in which they participate” (Thrift, 2004, p.60). For Thrift affect is a form of thinking, one that is indirect and non-reflective. This is how he is able to explain the affective experience of cities, it’s a transcendence of affect from one body to another. An example could be the way cities are designed, even simple paintings on a brick wall, or Christmas reefs on city lights all produce a certain affect on people. Another affect theorist who has developed affect theory in cultural and political thought is Deborah Gould.

Deborah Gould, is an associate professor in the sociology department of University of California Santa Cruz. She writes about affect in relation to social activist movements in her article entitled “Why Emotion”. Gould’s take on affect is similar to Thrifts, its based upon a non visceral state, something that can’t be consciously quantified. Gould draws on the work of affect theorist Brian Massumi, much like Thrift, to explain affect. They both agree that affect is based on a bodily experience. She states “To get a better idea of affect, consider how we often experience our feelings as opaque to ourselves, as something that we do not quite have language for, something that we can fully grasp, something that escapes us but is nevertheless in play, generated through interaction with the world, and affecting our embodied beings and subsequent actions. I call that bodily, sensory, inarticulate, non-conscious experience affect” (Gould, 2009, p.20). One thing that Gould does explicitly is draw a difference between affect and emotion, she states “The distinction I am drawing here between affect and emotion is not a temporal one, where, for example first you have affect and then a fixed emotion in its place. Affect is always in play, even if not actualized” (Gould, 2009, p.21). Gould’s article looks at the ACT UP (Aids Coalition to Unleash Power) social movement, her aim is to try and understand the origins of the movement, its meteoric rise, development and eventual decline. On a broader level it looks at social movements in general and how affect and emotion play a role. She argues that emotion and rationality can coincide, this was something that traditional collective behaviour literature failed to do, instead it took a rationalist approach. Gould states “Scholars in the emotional turn challenge the rationalist assumption of the dominant paradigms without returning to the worst aspects of the collective behaviour literature”, she goes on to say “A focus on emotion and feeling, then, need not, and should not, negate the rationality of protestors or political nature of social movements” (Gould, 2009, p. 17). Gould is able to show how affect and social movements are connected by outlining three insights that an affective ontology provides. First she argues that using affect when looking at social movements gives more insight into human motivation, something that “rationalist ontology or more cognitive renderings tend to obscure or misunderstand” (Gould, 2009, p.25). Second, affect shows how social reproduction and social change are important, for example it is in affective states that people generate attachment to leaders. Affect helps in understanding political inaction, something scholars often overlook (Gould, 2009, p.26). And thirdly, affect gives meaning in the context of social movements. Gould argues it is the affective sensations that start social movements, the non-conscious inkling to act that turns into a movement (Gould, 2009, p.28). Gould’s contributions to affect theory and social movements furthers the discussion in a political sense, it shows how people organize politically to incite change from a visceral force because they inherently know something is not right.

Another author that has contributed to affect theory is Ruth Leys, a professor of humanities at John Hopkins University. Her article, The Turn to Affect: A Critique, is just that, a critique of affect. To understand her arguments about affect it is important to discuss, The Autonomy of Affect, an article by Brian Massumi. Ruth Leys contribution to affect comes by critically engaging prominent affect theorist such as Nigel Thrift and Brian Massumi. Although she discusses both authors amongst others in her critique, she focuses mainly on Massumi and his presumption that affect and cognition are separate. Brian Massumi, in his article describes affect as autonomous, he states “affect is autonomous to the degree to which it escapes confinement in the particular body whose vitality, or potential for interaction, it is” (Massumi, 1995, p.96). For Massumi, affect is what we know and feel from our interpretations, the feelings that we get are separate and incongruent. Massumi’s interpretation of affect is inline with what both Nigel Thrift and Deborah Gould purport, that emotion and affect are separate, and so is the mind and body. Massumi, citing a study in which brain waves were measured to reaction time, reasons with an idea known as the missing half second. This is basically brain activity that is going on without actually being aware of it. This is occurring at a visceral, affective state. Massumi states, “the half second is missed not because it is empty, but because it is overfull, in excess of the actually performed action and of its ascribed meaning”, he goes on to state “It should be noted in particular that during the mysterious half second, what we think of as ‘higher’ functions, such as volition, are apparently being performed by autonomic, bodily reactions occurring in the brain but outside consciousness, and between brain and finger, but prior to action and expression (Massumi, 1995, p.90). This could very well be an example of what affect is, this is how Massumi argues that emotion and affect are separate, and it also draws a distinction between the body and the mind. It is with these assumptions that Ruth Leys engages critically, she debates the separation between emotion and affect as well as the mind and body. Leys states “they suggest that the affects must be viewed as independent of, and in an important sense prior to, ideology – that is, prior to intentions, meanings, reasons, and beliefs— because they are nonsignifying, autonomic processes that take place below the threshold of conscious awareness and meaning” (Leys, 2011, p.437). Leys here shows the view of theorists like Massumi and Thrift, she refutes this line of thinking by stating “the claim that affect is a formless, unstructured, nonsignifying force or ‘intensity’ that escapes the categories of the psychologists suggests that Tomkins’s or Ekman’s or Damasio’s talk about the existence of six or seven or eight or nine structured, evolved categories of innate emotions is incompatible with the views of writers such as Massumi who espouse Spinozist-Deleuzean ideas about affect” (Leys, 2011, p.442). Here Leys looks at another viewpoint, the Tomkins-Ekman paradigm which she claims is incompatible with affect theorists. According to Leys the fundamental distinctions that affect are based on are not sustainable when you revisit the experiments that separate the mind and body. Leys is much more interested in the cultural aspects of affect.

In conclusion, affect theory offers a new way of thinking, or bringing back an older less popular way of thinking. Affect, according to authors like Thrift, Gould, and Massumi is at odds with Cartesian dualism, the prominent western way of thought. Theorists such as Thrift, Gould, and Massumi all develop affect theory in cultural and political thought by showing how affect, although visceral and non–conscious, has an effect on outcomes. The critique by Ruth Leys also aids to the development of affect theory, because it questions certain premises which the theory is based on.

Bibliography Deborah B. Gould, “Why Emotion,” in Moving Politics: Emotion and Act-Up’s Fight Against Aids. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009, pp. 1-48. Brian Massumi, “The Autonomy of Affect,” Cultural Critique 31 (Fall 1995), pp. 83-109.

Ruth Leys, The Turn to Affect: A Critique, Critical Inquiry, 37:3, pp. 434-72.

Nigel Thrift, “Intensities of Feeling: Toward a Spatial Politics of Affect,” Geografiska Annaler 86B (2004), pp. 57-78.