Politics, populism, and affects

Tromsø Conference in Ethics and Political Philosophy: Politics, populism, and affects, UiT – The Arctic University of Norway, 12.-13.12.2024

Keynote: Alan Finlayson (University of East Anglia)

This year’s Tromsø Conference in Ethics and Political Philosophy aims to bring together political theorists with scholars working on affects/emotions in various fields. We are especially interested in how these areas of work can be bridged fruitfully and how work on affects and affective justice might contribute to or supplement theories of democratic and social equality and/ or populism and lead to a deeper understanding of the issues that span work on these topics. Today, affects and emotions draw a lot of attention across the humanities. In cultural studies, affect theory in the tradition of scholars such as Eve Sedgwick, Sara Ahmed and Laurent Berlant has long been influential, drawing our attention to the fundamental relation between affects and power, the social origin of emotions, their circulation among people and their political and social effects. Concepts such as “affective labor” and “emotional labor” have provided a lens through which to describe and analyze how the production and management of feelings in self and others is distributed (unequally) in society and across groups. More recently, Shilol Whitney and others have highlighted “affective harm” and “affective injustice” as specific forms of harm and injustice that are inherently affective in nature.

At the same time, affects and emotions have also entered discussions in political theory concerning topics such as justice, democracy, populism, and their accompanying dynamics. In Chantal Mouffe’s recent work analyzes how all politics is affective, and how populist parties are using affects like resentment and xenophobia (right populism) or hope and solidarity (left populism) to pursue specific strategies. Similarly, political theorists like Martha Nussbaum and Sara Protasi warn that emotions like fear, envy, and resentment have been neglected in political theory, even though they play a critical role in racial tensions and divides – and thus are easily exploited by populist leaders. Similar concerns arise in the work around democratic and social equality with Martin Hartmann highlighting the need to include an understanding of the emotional impact of social inequality into relational theories of democratic equality and Joseph Vogl and Alan Finlayson analyzing the power of affects in modern finance capitalism and their effect on democracy – Vogl with a focus on ressentiment, Finlayson with a focus on affect and rhetoric.

The conference aims to bridge these various approaches to the political and social dimensions of affects and emotions and the role they can, should, and do play in populism, democracy, and debates about justice. Questions the conference will address include, but are not limited to, the following:

• When are affects productive or destructive in different spheres of the political arena?
• What is the role of affects and emotions in populism and/or democracy?
• Can focusing on affects help us distinguish between or evaluate different kinds of populism, i.e., left and right populism, democratic/non-democratic populism?
• How might notions such as emotional labor, affective injustice, or imaginary equality help us understand the political and social challenges we face today?
• What theoretical frameworks are best for evaluating the function of affects in political life?
• How might socially (re)produced affects structure intergroup relations and identities?
• How do affects work to uphold and perpetuate structures of domination and marginalization?
• What are the possible connections between affect(s) and political resistance? How can affects have emancipatory or progressive potential?
• What role do and/or should affects play in framing specific socio-political topics such as immigration, gender equality and diversity, or distributive justice in the analytic tradition?

As the organizing team (Kaja Jenssen Rathe, Vegard Stensen, Jonas Jakobsen, Kerstin Reibold), we welcome abstracts on any of these questions as well as related issues. We hope for a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches ranging from political and democratic theory over decolonial, feminist, and critical theory to phenomenology. Please send a 300 word abstract to Vegard Stensen ([email protected]) by September 15th, 2024. You can expect a decision on your abstract by October 15th, 2024.