Rather than seeing emotions as psychological dispositions, we need to consider how they work, in concrete particular ways, to mediate the relationships between the psychic and the social, and between the individual and the collective (119),
in order to introduce her idea of the affective economy that uses emotions to construct the boundaries and the world.
This idea is very interesting and true in the American society today. If you were to talk a walk into a high school cafeteria during lunch time on a regular day, you’ll find wide scale segregation of the students. Most of the black kids will be at a table with other black kids; the same for Whites and Hispanics. This is so because of the affective economies at work.
The failure of emotions to be located in a body, object, or figure allows the emotions to reproduce or generate the effects that they do (124).
The black kids at the same table share a type of love. This love may come from sharing in the same experiences, being raised in households with similar beliefs, and the same ancestry. Out of the love that they share, a degree of hate is generated towards students in other ethnic groups. The emotions at play in the high school basically dictate who hangs out with who, thus creating the boundaries of this affective economy.
Though I agree with Amed, I think that emotions are generated from the individual from some extent. For example, black slaves in America might have held a lot of contempt towards their masters, but when slavery ended the effects prevailed because someone voiced that contempt. Whoever spoke out first did so based off of their emotions. That idea of pain and hurt spread throughout the black community and has permeated down through the generations. Now social boundaries are established, but that would not have been so if these emotions would have never pushed an individual to speak out.
I think what Ahmed is trying to get at here is that emotions are not tied to particular objects, figures, or ideas. Rather emotions change as the object, figure, or idea circulates through this economy and are is used differently. In your example of a racial segregation in a high school, I agree with you that racial segregation may have found its roots in slavery. But at the same time, the state of racial affairs has improved since the days of slavery. If hate were possessed in a certain figure, the emotion directed towards it would not change over time. But as time has passed and tensions have settled, the hate of racial segregation has, for most people, simmered down and is less explosive now than it was before.
ReplyDeleteBrian,
ReplyDeleteI agree that racial tensions aren't as explosive as they may have been in the past. However, my argument is that the effects are still evident today. The present day effects are a result of the emotions harbored by our ancestors who passed on certain ideals through affect.