Book contents
- For, Against, Together
- STUDIES IN EMOTION AND SOCIAL INTERACTION
- For, Against, Together
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Rethinking Affective Antagonism
- Part I Emotional Politics and Political Emotions
- Part II Hostile Antagonistic Political Emotions
- Part III Complicating Narratives of Antagonism
- Part IV Unmasking Antagonism
- Part V Spaces of Antagonism
- Chapter 16 #WhileWeWereGone
- Chapter 17 Religious Freedom and Meaning Vertigo
- Chapter 18 Affective Bubbles and Political Emotions
- Index
- STUDIES IN EMOTION AND SOCIAL INTERACTION
- References
Chapter 16 - #WhileWeWereGone
Political Antagonism, Control and Empowerment Online
from Part V - Spaces of Antagonism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 May 2026
Book contents
- For, Against, Together
- STUDIES IN EMOTION AND SOCIAL INTERACTION
- For, Against, Together
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Rethinking Affective Antagonism
- Part I Emotional Politics and Political Emotions
- Part II Hostile Antagonistic Political Emotions
- Part III Complicating Narratives of Antagonism
- Part IV Unmasking Antagonism
- Part V Spaces of Antagonism
- Chapter 16 #WhileWeWereGone
- Chapter 17 Religious Freedom and Meaning Vertigo
- Chapter 18 Affective Bubbles and Political Emotions
- Index
- STUDIES IN EMOTION AND SOCIAL INTERACTION
- References
Summary
In this chapter, we examine how political antagonism is played out in online social spaces, taking the particular case of Internet blackout in Iran, implemented to quash mass protests in 2019. Using narratives of affective experiences of being disconnected from the Internet, a phenomenological analysis of presence and absence in online spaces is offered. We use Watsuji’s phenomenology of ‘betweenness’ to demonstrate how online social spaces create new possibilities for togetherness and examine the affective significance of being part of online communities. We show how, by being both ‘mine’ and ‘ours’, online social spaces afford new possibilities for individual self-expression and collective identity building. As such, these spaces acquire an empowering quality by encouraging and facilitating a plurality of narratives that challenges the singularity of narratives of power.
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- For, Against, TogetherRethinking Antagonistic Political Emotions, pp. 319 - 337Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
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