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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]).