The Affective Turn: What It Is And How It Has Transformed The Social Sciences
Every certain time, the development of science and philosophy in our societies It has been marked by transformations that implicitly carry the promise that we will know something new, or at least, that we will know it in a different way.
Thus, we could identify different stages that were inaugurated after a detour, a rotation, a turn, an alteration, a turn occurred. That is, a change of route and direction in the construction of knowledge.
This has happened with different nuances and in different disciplines. Specifically, within the social sciences of recent decades there have been a set of works that have been grouped under the name “Affective Turn” (Affective Turn).
The Affective Turn is a term used to refer to different works within the social sciences whose theoretical intention is mainly presented in two ways (Lara and Enciso, 2013): the interest in the emotions that inhabit public life, on the one hand, and the effort to produce knowledge that deepens this emotionalization of public life ( in contrast to the rationalization characteristic of traditional sciences), on the other.
It is said to be a “Turn” because it represents a break with the object of study on which the production of knowledge within the social sciences had traditionally been based. It is also “Affective”, because The new objects of knowledge are precisely emotion and affect
Some of the theories that have been grouped within the Affective Turn have been, for example, the contemporary reformulation of psychoanalytic theory, the Actor Network theory (which connects especially with scientific studies on technology), feminist movements and theories. , cultural geography, poststructuralism (which especially connects with art), some theories within the neurosciences, among others.
Likewise, some of the antecedents for this change of route, which we know as the “Affective Turn,” are the psychosocial theories that originated in the second half of the 20th century, such as socioconstructionism, discursive social psychology, cultural studies of emotions interpretive sociology, sociolinguistics, among others (which in turn had taken up several of the most classic theories of sociology, anthropology and phenomenological philosophy).
Three theoretical-practical consequences of the Affective Turn
Something that emerged from “Linguistic Turn” is the proposal that emotions can be studied beyond biology and physiology, with which the social sciences could develop their own research methods; methods that account for how (bodily) experience is connected to public life, and vice versa
Likewise, and without being exempt from criticism and controversy, this proposal led to the construction of different research methods, where not only emotions and affects gained strength; but the interactions, the discourses, the body or gender (and their cultural and historical variability), as social and psychic mobilizers; and also as powerful builders of knowledge.
Next, we will follow the analyzes of Lara and Enciso (2013; 2014) to synthesize three of the theoretical and methodological consequences of the Affective Turn
1. Rethink the body
A basic premise in the Affective Turn is that emotions and affection play a very important role in the transformation and production of public life. For example, within institutions and their sectors (the media, health, legality, etc.), which impact the way we relate and the way we experience the world.
In turn, emotion and affect are corporeal phenomena (they take place in the body, because they “affect”, they connect the body with the world; they are experiences that are felt and that occur at a preconscious level). These phenomena can be displaced and also transmitted through discourse.
Thus, the body ceases to be only a stable, fixed or determined entity or organism; is also understood as a process that has a biological mediation, but that is not the only one
In short, affect and emotions gain importance as a unit of analysis, with which the body leaves the limits of biology that had explained it only in organic and/or molecular terms. This allows us to think about how experiences shape society and space, and from there, processes such as identity or belonging.
2. Affect or emotion?
Something that has been discussed especially from the Affective Turn is the difference and relationship between “affect” and “emotion”, and later “feeling” The proposals differ according to the author and the tradition or discipline in which it is framed.
To put it very briefly, “affect” would be the strength or intensity of the experience, which predisposes to action; and emotion would be the pattern of corporeal-cerebral responses that are culturally recognized and that delimit the form of social encounters.
For its part, “feeling” (a concept that has been developed in an especially important way in the part of the neurosciences that influenced the Affective Turn), would refer to the subjective experience of emotion (the latter would be a more objective experience).
3. Defense of transdisciplinarity
Finally, the Affective Turn has been characterized by defending a transdisciplinary methodological position. It is based on the assumption that a single theoretical current is not sufficient to explain the complexity of affects, and how these affects socially and culturally organize our experiences therefore, it is necessary to resort to different orientations.
For example, some of the methods that gain strength from the Affective Turn have been discursive methodologies, narrative analyses, and empirical approaches; in connection with genetic sciences, quantum physics, neurosciences or information theories.
