Table Of ContentCPEPR 6/11/07 6:15 PM Page i
The Cultural Politics of Emotion
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The Cultural Politics of Emotion
second edition
Sara Ahmed
© Sara Ahmed, 2004, 2014
First edition published by Edinburgh University Press in 2004
Second edition 2014
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
The Tun – Holyrood Road
12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry
Edinburgh EH8 8PJ
www.euppublishing.com
Typeset in 11 on 13 pt Ehrhardt by
SNP Best-set Typesetter Ltd, Hong Kong, and
new material by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
A CIP record for this book is available from the British
Library
ISBN 978 0 7486 9113 5 (paperback)
ISBN 978 0 7486 9114 2 (webready PDF)
ISBN 978 0 7486 9115 9 (epub)
The right of Sara Ahmed
to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988,
and the Copyright and Related Rights
Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).
Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Acknowledgements for the Second Edtion vii
Introduction: Feel Your Way 1
1 The Contingency of Pain 20
2 The Organisation of Hate 42
3 The Affective Politics of Fear 62
4 The Performativity of Disgust 82
5 Shame Before Others 101
6 In the Name of Love 122
7 Queer Feelings 144
8 Feminist Attachments 168
Conclusion: Just Emotions 191
Afterword: Emotions and Their Objects 204
References 234
Index 249
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Acknowledgements
I wrote this book whilst I was co-director and then director of the Institute
for Women’s Studies at Lancaster University between 2000 and 2003. Thanks
to all colleagues and students at Lancaster who helped me stay motivated
during a challenging time, especially: Jackie Stacey (who shared the direc-
torship with me for two years, and did much more than lighten the load);
Rosemary Betterton; Claudia Castañeda; Alison Easton; Anne-Marie Fortier;
Gerry Harris; Maureen McNeil; Lynne Pearce; Celia Roberts; Mimi Sheller;
Vicky Singleton; Elaine Swan and Imogen Tyler. Thanks to Lauren Berlant
whose visits to Lancaster generated much debate about ‘feelings in public’,
from which I have greatly benefited. Thanks to Janet Hartley and Sandra
Irving for continual and good-humoured support. My appreciation to Yuko
Ogawo who gave me wonderful assistance in the preparation of the final
manuscript and to Sarah Franklin, Nicole Vittelone, and Mimi Sheller who
offered really helpful feedback on an earlier draft. Thanks to Jackie Jones for
her excellent editorial advice throughout and her patience towards the end of
the project. And my appreciation to Martha Elisa Bojórquez for kindly giving
permission to use her beautiful art work for the cover.
I have been lucky to edit the book whilst on study leave in Australia.
Thanks to the Arts and Humanities Research Board who funded this leave.
I am very grateful to Elspeth Probyn and staff and students in the Depart-
ment of Gender Studies, Sydney University, for providing such a stimulat-
ing environment in which to work. Thanks to my family, for being nearby in
this past year, and for living under the sun. A special thanks to Sarah Franklin
and Imogen Tyler for helping me change directions more than once.
Earlier versions of chapters have appeared as follows, and I thank pub-
lishers for permission to reprint here: (2001) ‘The Organisation of Hate’ in
Law and Critique 13 (3): 345–65, with kind permission of Kluwer Acade-
mic Publishers; (2002) ‘Contingency of Pain’ in Parallax 8 (1): 17–34
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acknowledgements vii
(http://www.tandf.co.uk/journalsroutledge/13534645.html; (2003) ‘The
Politics of Fear in the Making of Worlds’ in International Journal of Quali-
tative Studies in Education 16 (3): 377–98 (http://www.tandf.co.uk); (2003)
‘Feminist Futures’ in M. Eagleton (ed.), The Concise Companion to Feminist
TThheeoorryy,, BBllaacckkwweellll.. PPeerrmmiissssiioonn ttoo qquuoottee ffrroomm B Brriinnggiinngg T thheemm HHoommee wwaass ggrraanntteedd
by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Australia.
Acknowledgements for the Second Edition
With thanks to Jackie Jones for suggesting and supporting a second edition
of this book and to the editorial team at Edinburgh University Press for their
help and efficiency. My appreciation to those with whom I have conversed
about affect and emotion in the past decade including Lauren Berlant, Lisa
Blackman, Kristyn Gorton, Sneja Gunew, Jin Haritaworn, Carolyn Pedwell,
Elspeth Probyn, Divya Tolia-Kelly and Imogen Tyler. Thanks to my now-
not-so-new colleagues at Goldsmiths for creating such a friendly and lively
space to work; and to those who helped set up our new Centre for Feminist
Research especially Sarah Kember, Angela McRobbie, Beverley Skeggs, and
Natalie Fenton. And my heartfelt thanks to Sarah Franklin for travelling with
me on this intellectual journey.
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CPEIN 6/11/07 6:16 PM Page 1
Introduction: Feel Your Way
Every day of every year, swarms of illegal immigrants and bogus
asylum seekers invade Britain by any means available to them...
Why? They are only seeking the easy comforts and free benefits in
Soft Touch Britain. All funded by YOU – The British Taxpayer!
(British National Front Poster)1
How does a nation come to be imagined as having a ‘soft touch’? How does
this ‘having’ become a form of ‘being’, or a national attribute? In The
Cultural Politics of Emotion, I explore how emotions work to shape the ‘sur-
faces’ of individual and collective bodies. Bodies take the shape of the very
contact they have with objects and others. My analysis proceeds by reading
texts that circulate in the public domain, which work by aligning subjects with
collectives by attributing ‘others’ as the ‘source’ of our feelings. In this quote
from the British National Front, ‘the others’, who are named as illegal immi-
grants and bogus asylum seekers, threaten to overwhelm and swamp the
nation. This is, of course, a familiar narrative, and like all familiar narratives,
it deserves close and careful reading. The narrative works through othering;
the ‘illegal immigrants’ and ‘bogus asylum seekers’ are those who are ‘not us’,
and who in not being us, endanger what is ours. Such others threaten to take
away from what ‘you’ have, as the legitimate subject of the nation, as the one
who is the true recipient of national benefits. The narrative invites the reader
to adopt the ‘you’ through working on emotions: becoming this ‘you’ would
mean developing a certain rage against these illegitimate others, who are rep-
resented as ‘swarms’ in the nation. Indeed, to feel love for the nation, whereby
love is an investment that should be returned (you are ‘the taxpayer’), is also
to feel injured by these others, who are ‘taking’ what is yours.
It is not the case, however, that anybody within the nation could inhabit
this ‘you’. These short sentences depend on longer histories of articulation,
Description:This is a bold take on the crucial role of emotion in politics. Emotions work to define who we are as well as shape what we do and this is no more powerfully at play than in the world of politics. Ahmed considers how emotions keep us invested in relationships of power, and also shows how this use of
