Intersubjectivity of Affects and Social Change

The main goal of the project is to gain a theoretical insight into the processes through which political affects could become intersubjective and create a potential for social change, particularly in the context of major societal crises such as the 2008 financial meltdown or the Covid-19 pandemic. We recognize that the current literature still lacks the theoretical resources to explain these processes, especially if a destabilization is caused by a major societal crisis. The project will address two types of processes related to political affects: 1) We will consider the processes of making particular political affective dynamics intersubjective. We presuppose that one important catalyst of social change is to be found in negative political affects (from suffering or anger to more complex ones like an experience of injustice or distrust towards the given political system or establishment), but that these affects often remain unconveyed to other actors or groups. We propose that social engagement – a process in which collective attention to the norms and rules of social action emerges through interaction, resulting in attempts to modify or reinforce them – plays a crucial role in shaping the dynamics of political affectivity. Thus, we will try to develop a model of collective political affectivity which integrates social engagement. (2) The second type of processes we aim to examine are the “coping strategies” that a given institutional order employs to deal with negative political emotions of those who are discontented. In addition to addressing how various forms of domination neutralize affects, we will specifically argue that complex forms of domination do not intervene at the level of atomized affects but at that of emerging collective affectivity – they provide an articulation of this affectivity that is system-conforming.