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Practice and emotional geographies

Recently, the geography of emotions has become a vibrant field for  
empirical studies (Davidson/Bondi/Smith 2005; Smith/Davidson/Cameron/ 
Bondi 2009) in combination with (and sometimes in competition with)  
increased interest in theories of affect. Whereas this appears to be a  
crucial step forward in conceptual terms, not everyone interested in  
socio-spatial aspects of emotional life is equally convinced of the  
merits of the predominating theories of affect. Is it appropriate to  
represent something deeply human, instantly recognisable such as  
emotions in a rather abstract language that some may find  
(emotionally) intimidating in itself?

Nowadays, practice is widely used instead of concepts such as social  
action or agency in discussing human activity. There are ontological  
and epistemological reasons for this vocabulary and the newly emerging  
theories of social practice, notably developed by T. Schatzki and A.  
Reckwitz, open up new routes of analysis. However, practices and  
emotions appear to exist in separate conceptual worlds. Theories of  
social practice hide the emotional in ‘teleoaffective structures’;  
emotional geographies tend to view emotions occurring alongside to  
practices.

This session attempts to address the conceptual gulf between practice  
and emotions by looking at how emotions are practised and how  
practices are felt. Some researchers have attempted to address this  
(Katz 1999) and through this session we are looking for others. How  
are emotions enacted, embodied and embedded in specific routines of  
everyday life? Can we talk about emotion without focusing on people  
talking about their emotions?

We’d like to invite contributions that deploy practice-centred  
methodologies in exploring the emotional through empirical research.  
We are especially interested in ordinary practices and the ordinary,  
semi-intense emotions related to them (not just the ‘big’ emotions of  
anger, love, fear and hate). Semi-intensive experiences are as much  
part of social practice as the full-force intensive ones and tell us  
much about the constitution of social life; the silences and  
antagonisms, the ruptures and the taken-for-granted are all welcome  
here.

We aim to challenge discourse-centred accounts by adhering to the  
principle that ‘how’ can tell as much or more about the ‘why’ than  
discursive methods. As much as this is a theoretical argument, it is  
the basis of ethnographic and ethnomethodological approaches – seeing  
what people actually do in comparison to what they say they do – and  
consequently recognizing the ways that places, people and events are  
produced in the moment of doing emotional practices.

Please send abstracts that adhere to the AAG guidelines by OCTOBER 20  
to both Lauren Wagner ([log in to unmask]) and Jonathan Everts ([log in to unmask] 
).