Methodological Approaches to Studying Emotions and Social Movements: Insights, Challenges, and New Research Avenues
Emotions are central to political mobilization, shaping collective identities, strategies, and outcomes of activist networks, groups, movements, and events. These networks not only influence local and national politics but increasingly operate across borders, reflecting the transnational dimension of contemporary activism. Our workshop seeks to explore innovative qualitative approaches for studying emotions in activism and social movements, fostering a critical discussion on how researchers can navigate the complexities of affect, feeling, and emotional expression within political mobilizations across the political spectrum.
Methodological work in recent years has explored how emotions can be empirically captured through language, identifying indicators such as connotations, metaphors, comparisons, and emotion implications. In International Relations, discourse analysis is regarded as key method for examining the complexities of emotions. This body of work focuses on intersubjectively shared emotional patterns of discourse members in public sphere, rather than intrinsic feelings of individuals.
While the workshop draws on these methodological and conceptual developments, it is not limited to them. Rather, it encourages broader discussions on various approaches to studying emotions and affects, inviting contributions that engage with, challenge, or extend beyond the current state of research. Key questions include:
- How do activist networks confront and potentially reshape the emotion(al) norms established by institutions?
- Which actors are permitted to express certain emotions, and whose emotions gain prominence in political discourse?
- How can researchers access and interpret activists' emotions without imposing their own affective biases?
- What are the ethical and practical challenges of studying highly charged political spaces?
By sharing insights from ongoing research and discussing new conceptual and methodological tools, we aim to refine existing approaches and explore emerging research avenues.
Organized by research project D04 “Affective Contestation: Dynamics of a Contested Emotional Politics in European Migration Policy” at CRC 1171 Affective Societies.