Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-skm99 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T17:18:50.063Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Researching Identities as Affective Discursive Practices

from Part II - New Perspectives and Challenges

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2021

By
Octavia Calder-Dawe  and
Maree Martinussen
Edited by
Michael Bamberg ,
Carolin Demuth  and
Meike Watzlawik
Michael Bamberg
Affiliation:
Clark University, Massachusetts
Carolin Demuth
Affiliation:
Aalborg University, Denmark
Meike Watzlawik
Affiliation:
Sigmund Freud University, Berlin
Get access

Summary

The study of identity has proved to be a capacious interdisciplinary meeting point for scholars working at the interface of social formations and individual psychologies. As many in the social sciences are stepping towards affect and emotion, and turning away from discourse, what are the implications for the study of identity? What place remains for the discursively-constituted subject in identity studies, and how might new investigations proceed? Taking up fresh theoretical developments, this chapter explores what an affective-discursive practice approach brings to the study of identity, and its potential for investigating the semiotic, social and somatic constitution of identity (Wetherell 2012). We begin by mapping out the development of an affective discursive practice approach in light of the turn of affect as well as longer-standing trends in discursive psychology. From here, we outline the distinctive features of affective discursive analyses of identity, and reflect on the particular strengths of this approach for thinking through identity and identifications in their complexity, and responding to debates regarding the nature of agency and querying distinctions between “inner” and “outer” lives. In the final section of the chapter, we demonstrate how an affective-discursive practice approach enables rich, multilayered investigations of embodied identity practices, with potential to connect the dots between the pushes and pulls of socio-historical regimes and the more idiosyncratic play of personalized affective patterns and situated practices.

Keywords

Affective discursive practicescritical discursive psychologyidentity practicesidentity troubleMargaret Wetherell
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Identity , pp. 120 - 143
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahmed, S. (2004). The Cultural Politics of Emotion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, B. (2009). Affective atmospheres. Emotion, Space & Society, 2(2), 77–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bille, M. & Simonsen, K. (2019). Atmospheric practices: On affecting and being affected. Space and Culture, 24(2), doi:10.1177/1206331218819711.Google Scholar
Billig, M. (1991). Ideology and Opinions: Studies in Rhetorical Psychology. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Blackman, L., Cromby, J., Hook, D., Papadopoulos, D., & Walkerdine, V. (2008). Creating subjectivities. Subjectivity, 22(1), 1–27. doi:10.1057/sub.2008.8.Google Scholar
Brown, S. D. & Stenner, P. (2009). Psychology without Foundations. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Burkitt, I. (2014). Emotions and Social Relations. London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campos, G. P., Ramos, C. S., & Bernal, J. J. Y. (1999). Emotion discourse “speaks” of involvement: Commentary on Edwards. Culture & Psychology, 5(3), 293–304. doi:10.1177/1354067X9953002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chowdhury, N. & Gibson, K. (2019). This is (still) a man’s world: Young professional women’s identity struggles in gendered workplaces. Feminism & Psychology, 29(4), 475–493, doi:10.1177/0959353519850851.Google Scholar
Clough, P. T. (2008). The affective turn: Political economy, biomedia and bodies. Theory, Culture & Society, 25(1), 1–22, doi:10.5565/rev/athenead/v13n3.1060.Google Scholar
Clough, P. T. & Halley, J. O. (Eds.). (2008). The Affective Turn: Theorizing the Social. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Cromby, J. (2015). Feeling Bodies: Embodying Affect. Basingstoke: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Cromby, J. & Willis, M. E. H. (2016). Affect – or feeling (after Leys). Theory & Psychology, 26(4), 476–495, doi:10.1177/0959354316651344.Google Scholar
Davies, B. & Harré, R. (1990). Positioning: The discursive production of selves. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 20(1), 43–63. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5914.1990.tb00174.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Döveling, K., Harju, A. A., & Sommer, D. (2018). From mediatized emotion to digital affect cultures: New technologies and global flows of emotion. Social Media+ Society, 4(1), 1–11.Google Scholar
Duff, C. (2016). Atmospheres of recovery: Assemblages of health. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 48(1), 58–74. doi:10.1177/0308518X15603222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edwards, D. (1999). Emotion discourse. Culture & Psychology, 5(3), 271–291, doi:10.1177/1354067X9953001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emerson, P. & Frosh, S. (2004). Critical Narrative Analysis in Psychology: A Guide to Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacmillanGoogle Scholar
Everts, J. & Wagner, L. (2012). Guest editorial: Practising emotions. Emotion, Space & Society, 5, 174–176.Google Scholar
Frosh, S. (2014). The nature of the psychosocial: Debates from studies in the psychosocial. Journal of Psycho-Social Studies, 8(1), 159–169.Google Scholar
Gill, R. & Kanai, A. (2018). Mediating neoliberal capitalism: Affect, subjectivity and inequality. Journal of Communication, 68(2), 318–326. doi:10.1093/joc/jqy002.Google Scholar
Gill, R. & Orgad, S. (2017). Confidence culture and the remaking of feminism. New Formations, 91, 16–34.Google Scholar
Gill, R. & Orgad, S. (2018). The amazing bounce-backable woman: Resilience and the psychological turn in neoliberalism. Sociological Research Online, 23(2), 477–495.Google Scholar
Hollway, W. & Jefferson, T. (2005). Response: But why did Vince get sick? A reply to Spears and Wetherell. British Journal of Social Psychology, 42(2), 175–180, doi:10.1348/014466605X37503.Google Scholar
Laurier, E. & Philo, C. (2006). Possible geographies: A passing encounter in a café. Area, 38(1), 353–363.Google Scholar
Leys, R. (2011). The turn to affect: A critique. Critical Inquiry, 37(3), 434–472.Google Scholar
Martinussen, M. (2019). Critical social psychology and interdisciplinary studies of personal life: Greater than the sum of its parts. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 13(1), 1–13.Google Scholar
Martinussen, M. & Wetherell, M. (2019). Affect, practice and contingency: Critical discursive psychology and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Subjectivity, 12(2), 101–116, doi:10.1057/s41286–019-00071-y.Google Scholar
Massumi, B. (2002). Parables for the Virtual: Movements, Affect, Sensation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
McConville, A., McCreanor, T., Wetherell, M., & Moewaka Barnes, H. (2017). Imagining an emotional nation: The print media and Anzac Day commemorations in Aotearoa New Zealand. Media, Culture & Society, 39(1), 94–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGrath, L., Mullarkey, S., & Reavey, P. (2019). Building visual worlds: Using maps in qualitative psychological research on affect and emotion. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 17(1), 75–97, doi:10.1080/14780887.2019.1577517.Google Scholar
Moewaka Barnes, H., Gunn, T. R., Moewaka Barnes, A., Muriwai, E., Wetherell, M., & McCreanor, T. (2017). Feeling and spirit: Developing an indigenous wairua approach to research. Qualitative Research, 17(3), 313–325, doi:10.1177/1468794117696031.Google Scholar
Parker, I. (1999). Critical psychology: Critical links. Annual Review of Critical Psychology, 1, 3–18.Google Scholar
Reckwitz, A. (2002). Toward a theory of social practices: A development in culturalist theorizing. European Journal of Social Theory, 5(2), 243–263.Google Scholar
Reddy, W. (2001). The Navigation of Feelings: A Framework for the History of Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reicher, S. (1996). The battle of Westminster: Developing the social identity model of crowd behaviour in order to deal with the initiation and development of collective conflict. European Journal of Social Psychology, 26, 115–134.Google Scholar
Reicher, S. (2001). The psychology of crowd dynamics. In Hogg, M. A. & Tindale, S. (Eds.), Blackwell Handbook of Social Psychology: Group Processes (pp. 182–208). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Reicher, S., Spears, R., & Haslam, S. A. (2010). The social identity approach in social psychology. In Wetherell, M. & Mohanty, T. C. (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Identities (pp. 45–62). London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruppanner, L. & Churchill, B. (2018). Sorry, men, there’s no such thing as “dirt blindness” – you just need to do more housework. The Conversation. Retrieved April 20, 2021 from https://theconversation.com/sorry-men-theres-no-such-thing-as-dirt-blindness-you-just-need-to-do-more-housework-100883.Google Scholar
Scharff, C. (2016). The psychic life of neoliberalism: Mapping the contours of entrepreneurial subjectivity. Theory, Culture & Society, 33(6), 107–122, doi:10.1177/0263276415590164.Google Scholar
Scheer, M. (2012). Are emotions a kind of practice (and is that why they have a history?) A Bourdieuan approach to understanding emotion. History & Theory, 51(2), 193–200.Google Scholar
Scully, M. (2015). The problem of a subjective authenticity and the articulation of belonging among the Irish in England: A psychosocial approach. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 12(1), 34–44. doi:10.1080/14780887.2014.958369.Google Scholar
Sedgwick, E. K. (1997). Paranoid reading and reparative reading; or, you’re so paranoid, you probably think this introduction is about you. In Sedgwick, E. K. (Ed.), Novel Gazing: Queer Readings in Fiction (pp. 1–37). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sedgwick, E. K. (2007). Melanie Klein and the difference affect makes. South Atlantic Quarterly, 106(3), 625–642.Google Scholar
Sedgwick, E. K. & Frank, A. (1995). Shame and Its Sisters: A Silvan Tomkins Reader. Durham, NC: Duke University PressGoogle Scholar
Seymour-Smith, S., Wetherell, M., & Phoenix, A. (2002). “My wife ordered me to come!”: A discursive analysis of doctors’ and nurses’ accounts of men’s use of general practitioners. Journal of Health Psychology, 7(3), 253–267, doi:10.1177/1359105302007003220.Google Scholar
Sointu, E. (2016). Discourse, affect and affliction. The Sociological Review, 64(2), 312–328, doi:10.1111/1467-954X.12334.Google Scholar
Spears, R. (2005). Commentary: Where did Vincent’s van go? British Journal of Social Psychology, 44(2), 165–168. doi:10.1348/014466605X39628.Google Scholar
Sullivan, G. (2015). Collective emotions. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 9(8), 383–393. doi:10.1111/spc3.12183.Google Scholar
Sullivan, G. (2018). Collective emotions: A case study of South African pride, euphoria and unity in the context of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1252, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01252.Google Scholar
Taylor, S. (2010). Narratives of Identity and Place. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar
Taylor, S. (2015). Discursive and psychosocial? Theorising a complex contemporary subject. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 12(1), 8–21, doi:10.1080/14780887.2014.958340.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, S. (2017). Psychosocial research. In Gough, B. (Ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Social Psychology (pp. 225–241). London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Thrift, N. (2008). Non-representational Theory: Space, Politics, Affect. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Tomkins, S. S. (1995). Exploring Affect: The Selected Writings of Silvan S. Tomkins. Edited by Demos, E. V.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Van Der Merwe, H. (2019). Emotional labour and the practicing psychologist: When the psychologist’s professional emotions go awry. European Journal Qualitative Research in Psychotherapy, 9, 27–40.Google Scholar
Walkerdine, V. (2008). Contextualizing debates about psychosocial studies. Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, 13(4), 341–345. doi:doi.org/10.1057/pcs.2008.31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wetherell, M. (1998). Positioning and interpretative repertoires: Conversation analysis and post-structuralism in dialogue. Discourse & Society, 9(3), 387–412.Google Scholar
Wetherell, M. (2003). Paranoia, ambivalence, and discursive practices: Concepts of position and positioning in psychoanalysis and discursive psychology. In Harré, R. & Moghaddam, F. (Eds.), The Self and Others: Positioning Individuals and Groups in Personal, Political, and Cultural Contexts (pp. 99–120). Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
Wetherell, M. (2005a). Methods for studying intersectional and multiple identities: Troubled and untroubled subject positions and the macro/meso and micro. Paper presented at the ESRC Seminar Series, Methods in Dialogue, 18–20 May, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Wetherell, M. (2005b). Unconscious conflict or everyday accountability? British Journal of Social Psychology, 44(2), 169–173, doi:10.1348/014466605X39619.Google Scholar
Wetherell, M. (2006). Formulating selves: Social psychology and the study of identity. Social Psychological Review, 8(2), 62–72.Google Scholar
Wetherell, M. (2007). A step too far: Discursive psychology, linguistic ethnography and questions of identity. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 11(5), 661–681, doi:10.1111/j.1467-9841.2007.00345.x.Google Scholar
Wetherell, M. (2008). Subjectivity or psycho-discursive practices? Investigating complex intersectional identities. Subjectivity, 22(1), 73–81, doi:10.1057/sub.2008.7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wetherell, M. (2012). Affect and Emotion: A New Social Science Understanding. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Wetherell, M. (2013). Affect and discourse – What’s the problem? From affect as excess to affective/discursive practice. Subjectivity, 6(4), 349–368, doi:10.1057/sub.2013.13.Google Scholar
Wetherell, M. (2015a). Tears, bubbles and disappointment – New approaches for the analysis of affective-discursive practices: A commentary on “Researching the psychosocial.” Qualitative Research in Psychology, 12(1), 83–90, doi:10.1080/14780887.2014.958399.Google Scholar
Wetherell, M. (2015b). Trends in the turn to affect: A social psychological critique. Body & Society, 21(2), 139–166, doi:10.1177/1357034X14539020.Google Scholar
Wetherell, M. (2019). Understanding the terror attack: Some initial steps. New Zealand Journal of Psychology, 48(1), 6–9.Google Scholar
Wetherell, M. & Edley, N. (1999). Negotiating hegemonic masculinity: Imaginary positions and psycho-discursive practices. Feminism & Psychology, 9(3), 335–356, doi:10.1177/0959353599009003012.Google Scholar
Wetherell, M., McConville, A., & McCreanor, T. (2019). Defrosting the freezer and other acts of quiet resistance: Affective practice theory, everyday activism and affective dilemmas. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 17(1), 13–15, doi:10.1080/14780887.2019.1581310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wetherell, M. & Potter, J. (1992). Mapping the Language of Racism: Discourse and the Legitimation of Exploitation. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, R. (1977). Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×