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Emotions underpin how political communities are formed and function. Nowhere is this more pronounced than in times of trauma. The emotions associated with suffering caused by war, terrorism, natural disasters, famine and poverty can play a pivotal role in shaping communities and orientating their politics. This book investigates how 'affective communities' emerge after trauma. Drawing on several case studies and an unusually broad set of interdisciplinary sources, it examines the role played by representations, from media images to historical narratives and political speeches. Representations of traumatic events are crucial because they generate socially embedded emotional meanings which, in turn, enable direct victims and distant witnesses to share the injury, as well as the associated loss, in a manner that affirms a particular notion of collective identity. While ensuing political orders often re-establish old patterns, traumatic events can also generate new 'emotional cultures' that genuinely transform national and transnational communities.
List of contents
Introduction; Part I. Conceptual Framework: 1. Trauma and political community; 2. Theorizing political emotions; 3. Representing trauma and collectivizing emotions; Part II. The Emotional Constitution of Political Community: 4. Emotions and national community; 5. Emotions and transnational community; 6. Trauma, grief and political transformation; Conclusion. Affective communities and emotional cultures in international relations.
About the author
Emma Hutchison is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland. She has a growing international reputation for her research on emotions and world politics. Illustrative of her contribution is her recent co-edited forum section on 'Emotions and World Politics' in International Theory.
Summary
This book provides one of the first systematic examinations of the role emotions play in world politics. Using extensive conceptual inquiries and empirical case studies, it shows how representations of trauma, from terrorist attacks and humanitarian crises to civil unrest, can generate emotional legacies that shape communities in international relations.
