Affect in Relation: Families, Places, Technologies

307 Pages·2018·2.764 MB·English

by  Birgitt Röttger-Rössler, Jan Slaby

Affect in Relation
Decades of research on affect and emotion have brought out the para-
mount importance of affective processes for human lives.
Affect in Relation brings together perspectives from social science and
cultural studies to analyze the formative, subject constituting potentials of
affect and emotion. Relational affect is understood not as individual
mental states, but as social- relational processes that are both formative and
transformative of human subjects.
This volume explores relational affect through a combination of inter-
disciplinary case studies within four key contexts:
• Part I: “Affective Families” deals with the affective dynamics in trans-
national families who are scattered across several regions and nations.
• Part II: “Affect and Place” brings together work on affective place-
making in the contexts of migration and in political movements.
• Part III: “Affect at Work” analyzes the affective dimension of con-
temporary white- collar workplaces.
• Part IV: “Affect and Media” focuses on the role of media in the forma-
tion and mobilization of relational affect.
In its transdisciplinary spirit, analytical rigor and focus on timely and
salient global matters, Affect in Relation consolidates the field of affect
studies and opens up new avenues for scholarly and practical co-o peration.
It will appeal to both students and postdoctoral researchers interested in
fields such as anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, media studies and
human development.
Birgitt Röttger-Rössler is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology
and Director of the Collaborative Research Center Affective Societies at Freie
Universität Berlin, Germany.
Jan Slaby is Professor of Philosophy at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.
Routledge Studies in Affective Societies
1 Affect in Relation
Families, Places, Technologies
Edited by Birgitt Röttger-Rössler and Jan Slaby
Affect in Relation
Families, Places, Technologies
Edited by Birgitt Röttger-Rössler
and Jan Slaby
First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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© 2018 selection and editorial matter, Birgitt Röttger-Rössler and Jan
Slaby; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Birgitt Röttger-Rössler and Jan Slaby to be identified as
the authors of the editorial matter, and of the authors for their
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ISBN: 978-1-138-05905-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-16386-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Baskerville
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear
Contents
List of illustrations vii
Notes on contributors viii
Foreword xii
Acknowledgments xvi
1 Introduction: affect in relation 1
JAN SLABY AND BIRGITT RöTTGeR-RöSSLeR
PART I
Affective families 29
2 Ageing kin, proximity and distance: translocal relatedness
as affective practice and movement 31
MARUškA SVAšek
3 Education sentimentale in migrant students’ university
trajectories: family, and other significant relations 50
JOANNA PFAFF- CzARNeCkA
4 Germans with parents from Vietnam: the affective
dimensions of parent–child relations in Vietnamese Berlin 72
BIRGITT RöTTGeR-RöSSLeR AND ANh ThU ANNe LAM
PART II
Affect and place 91
5 Spatialities of belonging: affective place- making among
diasporic neo- Pentecostal and Sufi groups in Berlin’s
cityscape 93
hANSJöRG DILGeR, OMAR kASMANI AND DOMINIk MATTeS
vi Contents
6 “Mid¯an Moments”: conceptualizing space, affect and
political participation on occupied squares 115
BILGIN AYATA AND CILJA hARDeRS
7 Muslim domesticities: home invasions and affective
identification 134
GILBeRT CALUYA
PART III
Affect at work 153
8 Immersion at work: affect and power in post- Fordist work
cultures 155
RAINeR MühLhOFF AND JAN SLABY
9 Managing community: coworking, hospitality and the
future of work 175
MeLISSA GReGG AND ThOMAS LODATO
10 Automation and affect: a study of algorithmic trading 197
ROBeRT SeYFeRT
PART IV
Affect and media 219
11 Affect and mediation 221
LISA BLACkMAN
12 Intensive bondage 241
MARIe- LUISe ANGeReR
13 Beyond Turkish-G erman cinema: affective experience and
generic relationality 259
NAzLI kILeRCI AND hAUke LehMANN
Index 281
Illustrations
Figures
5.1 Spatial distribution of Sufi centers (circles) and
Pentecostal churches (diamonds) in Berlin (2016) 98
5.2 Followers assist in dismantling the interior of the
tekke- mosque in Neukölln (Berlin, 2016) 100
5.3 Worshipping members of Deeper Life in Lagos are
projected on a screen during the Sunday service of their
fellow congregants in Berlin 104
13.1 The face as a catalyst for affective transformation 266
13.2 hotel room as stage/video image, Şenay 267
13.3 hotel room as stage/video image, zeki 267
13.4 Inscribing the gang’s reign over the streets 271
13.5 The law of the everyday 272
13.6 The car as psychic interior, separated from the outside 272
13.7 Disintegration as haptic visuality 275
13.8 From undead … 276
13.9 … to action hero 276
Table
2.1 Interviewee groups 46
Contributors
Marie- Luise Angerer is Professor of Media Studies at the Department for
Art and Media, University of Potsdam and Director of the Brandenburg
Center of Media Studies. her research focuses on the entanglement of
media technologies, intensive milieus and intensity. her most recent
publications include Desire After Affect (Roman & Littlefield Intl. 2014),
Timing of Affect (with B Bösel & M Ott, Diaphanes 2014) and Ecology of
Affect (Meson 2017).
Bilgin Ayata is Assistant Professor in Political Sociology at the Universität
Basel and associate member of the Collaborative Research Center
(CRC) Affective Societies at Freie Universität Berlin. her research areas
include migration, social movements, memory and affective pol-
itics. She has published numerous articles including on the european
Border Regime after the Arab Revolutions (Leviathan 2017), Armenian–
kurdish Reconciliation (International Journal of Middle East Studies 2016)
and Turkish Foreign Policy after the Arab revolutions (Journal of Euro-
pean Integration 2015).
Lisa Blackman is Professor and Co- head of the Media and Communica-
tions Department at Goldsmiths, University of London. her research
focuses on the intersection of body studies and media and cultural
theory, with a particular interest in subjectivity and affect. Among her
publications are Immaterial Bodies (Sage 2012) and Haunted Data: Trans-
media, Affect, Weird Science and Archives of the Future (Bloomsbury Aca-
demic 2018).
Gilbert Caluya is a Lecturer in Screen and Cultural Studies at the Univer-
sity of Melbourne. his research focuses on the relations between
intimacy and race across a number of cultural sites, including sexual
subcultures, cultural citizenship and cultures of security. he received a
PhD in Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney in 2009.
his latest contributions include “Globalization and Feminism Chang-
ing” (The SAGE Handbook of Feminist Theory, Sage 2014) and “Pride and
Paranoia” (Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 2014).
Contributors ix
Hansjörg Dilger is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology and
head of the Research for medical anthropology at Freie Univer-
sität Berlin. his research interests include medical anthropology, the
anthropology of religion, processes of globalization in east and South
Africa and migratory contexts in Berlin. Among his latest publications
are Living in Refugee Camps in Berlin (with k Dohrn, eds, Weißensee
2016), “ethics, epistemology and engagement” (with S huschke and D
Mattes, eds, Medical Anthropology 2015) and “Politics of Religious School-
ing” (with D Schulz, eds, Journal of Religion in Africa 2013).
Melissa Gregg is a Principal engineer at Intel Corporation, Portland, OR,
researching the future of work. Before joining Intel she was on faculty
in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of
Sydney. her publications include The Affect Theory Reader (with GJ Sei-
gworth, eds, Duke 2010) and Cultural Studies’ Affective Voices (Palgrave
Macmillan 2006). Work’s Intimacy (Polity 2011) and Counterproductive
(forthcoming Duke) offer ethnographic and historical accounts of the
productivity pressures felt by knowledge workers in and outside the office.
Cilja Harders is Professor for Political Science and Director of the Center
for Middle eastern and North African Politics at the Otto Suhr Institute
of Political Science at Freie Universität Berlin. her main research inter-
ests are socio- political transformations of Middle eastern and North
African political orders, politics “from below,” gender relations, affect,
emotions and politics. Among her latest publications are “Unpacking
the effects of Repression: The evolution of Islamist Repertoires of Con-
tention in egypt after the Fall of President Morsi” (with J Grimm, Social
Movement Studies 2017).
Omar Kasmani is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Social and Cultural
Anthropology at the CRC Affective Societies at Freie Universität Berlin.
Drawing on his broader interest in religious lifeworlds, his current work
explores the affective spatialities of belonging in the city, focusing on
a Sufi circle in Berlin. Among his latest publications are Muslim Matter
(with S Maneval, eds, Revolver 2016), “Women (un)like Women” (Devo-
tional Islam in Contemporary South Asia, Routledge 2015), “Grounds of
Becoming” (Culture and Religion 2017) and “Pilgrimages of the Dream”
(forthcoming).
Nazlı Kilerci is a Doctoral Researcher in the project “Migrant Melodramas
and Culture Clash Comedies” at the CRC Affective Societies at Freie
Universität Berlin. her research focuses on arabesk as a lifestyle and as a
cinematic mode in the Turkish- German context.
Anh Thu Anne Lam is a Doctoral Researcher in the project “The Forma-
tion of Feeling in Vietnamese Berlin” of the CRC Affective Societies at
Freie Universität Berlin.