Emotions and Social Movements: Twenty Years of Theory and Research
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SO37CH14-Jasper ARI 1 June 2011 12:11 Emotions and Social Movements: Twenty Years of Theory and Research James M. Jasper Department of Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center, New York, NY 10016-4309; email: [email protected] Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2011. 37:285–303 Keywords First published online as a Review in Advance on affective solidarity, emotional energy, emotional liberation, moral April 26, 2011 shocks, pride, shame The Annual Review of Sociology is online at soc.annualreviews.org Abstract Access provided by Harvard University on 09/16/15. For personal use only. Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2011.37:285-303. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org This article’s doi: The past 20 years have seen an explosion of research and theory into the 10.1146/annurev-soc-081309-150015 emotions of protest and social movements. At one extreme, general the- Copyright c 2011 by Annual Reviews. oretical statements about emotions have established their importance in All rights reserved every aspect of political action. At the other, the origins and influence of 0360-0572/11/0811-0285$20.00 many specific emotions have been isolated as causal mechanisms. This article offers something in between, a typology of emotional processes aimed not only at showing that not all emotions work the same way, but also at encouraging research into how different emotions interact with one another. This should also help us overcome a residual suspicion that emotions are irrational, as well as avoid the overreaction, namely demonstrations that emotions help (and never hurt) protest mobiliza- tion and goals. 285 SO37CH14-Jasper ARI 1 June 2011 12:11 INTRODUCTION individual versus social, or affect versus emo- tion (Massumi 2002). We need to recognize Twenty years ago, emotions were almost en- that feeling and thinking are parallel, inter- Urges: urgent bodily tirely absent from scholarly accounts of politics, acting processes of evaluating and interacting needs that crowd out protest, and social movements. One searched in with our worlds, composed of similar neuro- other feelings and vain for any mention or index entry (Goodwin attention until they are logical building blocks. Perhaps in reaction to 1997, p. 53). In the years since, emotions of ev- satisfied: lust, hunger, the residual dualisms, scholars of emotions in ery sort have reappeared in research on social substance addictions, movements often concentrate on emotions that the need to urinate or movements, in a still-growing flow of articles help protestors rather than on a full range that defecate, exhaustion or and books. This review recaps some of what help, hurt, or do neither (just as other concepts pain we have learned from that research and theory, such as resources or opportunities tend to be identifies some of its limits, and suggests where portrayed only as good things). we might go next. The second problem is that labels for spe- Emotions are present in every phase and cific emotions are often taken intact from nat- every aspect of protest (social movements and ural language—anger and fear being the most protest overlap sufficiently for me to use the common—but actually cover different kinds of terms interchangeably here). They motivate feelings. Anger, for example, can be a gut surge individuals, are generated in crowds, are ex- of panic over something in the shadows or an pressed rhetorically, and shape stated and un- elaborated indignation over the insensitivity of stated goals of social movements. Emotions can our government. Shame, too, has at least two be means, they can be ends, and sometimes they different forms: one (also observed in nonhu- can fuse the two. They can help or hinder mo- mans) based on physical humiliation, a kind bilization efforts, ongoing strategies, and the of cowing, and the other on a shared moral success of social movements. Cooperation and code that one has violated. As social scientists, collective action have always offered an oppor- we need to build on these natural-language tunity to think about social action more gen- labels—which, after all, deeply shape how peo- erally, and the return of emotions is the latest ple feel and act—but we also need to make bet- inspiration for doing this. ter analytic distinctions among them. The intellectual pendulum has swung in the A third problem is that statements are made past two decades from structural theories of so- about emotions in general, conflating differ- cial movements toward cultural ones that in- ent types of feeling. The word emotion, like clude motivation for action, the meaning of its counterpart in many other languages, covers events for political participants, strategic dilem- numerous expressions, interactions, feelings, mas and decision-making processes, and the and labels. Although scholars have suggested need for a theory of action to complement the Access provided by Harvard University on 09/16/15. For personal use only. that we develop subcategories that correspond Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2011.37:285-303. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org theory of structural context developed in the better to the different kinds of things termed 1970s and 1980s ( Jasper 2010a). Virtually all emotions (Griffiths 1997; Gould 2009; Lefranc the cultural models and concepts currently in & Sommier 2009, p. 292), most continue to ob- use (e.g., frames, identities, narratives) are mis- serve and theorize one such subcategory while specified if they do not include explicit emo- applying the term emotions to it. When their tional causal mechanisms. Yet few of them do. models are misapplied to other kinds of emo- The emerging subfield of emotions and tion, confusion results. Few blanket statements movements has been limited by several con- about emotions as a category can hold up. ceptual confusions, reflecting the broader so- To address all three problems, I have else- cial science of emotions. The first problem is where (Goodwin et al. 2004, Jasper 2006a) pre- that the traditional but untenable contrast of sented a crude typology of feelings based on emotions with rationality persists in the form how long they typically last and how they are of other dualisms such as body versus mind, felt. Urges are strong bodily impulses, hard 286 Jasper SO37CH14-Jasper ARI 1 June 2011 12:11 to ignore, such as lust, substance addiction, or distinguishing, for example, between shame as the need to sleep or defecate (Elster 1999b). a permanent feeling of moral inadequacy (as in Rarely considered emotions but clearly feel- caste systems) from reflex shame as a reaction Reflex emotions: ings, they can affect politics by interfering with to physical intimidation. fairly quick, automatic promised coordinated action, so that organizers responses to events try to control them (just as torturers use them and information, often to break people down). Reflex emotions are re- SOURCES taken as the paradigm actions to our immediate physical and social en- Until the 1960s, observers used the obvious for all emotions, such as anger, fear, joy, vironments, usually quick to appear and to sub- emotions of protest to dismiss protestors as ir- surprise, shock, and side, and accompanied by a package of facial rational or immature; from the 1960s to the disgust expressions and bodily changes (Ekman et al. 1990s, analysts denied any and all emotions in Moods: energizing or 1972). Most authors adopt reflex emotions— an effort to demonstrate that protestors are ra- de-energizing feelings fear, anger, joy, surprise, disgust, shock, and so tional (Goodwin et al. 2000). Even culturally that persist across on—as the paradigm for all emotions, thereby oriented scholars concentrated more on cogni- settings and do not exaggerating the intensity, suddenness, and dis- tive codes than on felt experiences. In the 1990s, normally take direct objects; they can be ruptive capacity of emotions. the intellectual pendulum began to swing back, changed by reflex Moods last longer, so that we can carry a with the “return of the repressed.” Scholars of emotions, as during mood from one setting to another; they dif- protest drew eclectically on various theories of interactions fer from other emotions in lacking a direct ob- emotions. Affective ject (Damasio 2003, p. 43; my typology is not A distinct sociology of emotions had ma- commitments or far from his). Moods both condition our reflex tured in the 1980s. The Managed Heart loyalties: relatively emotions and are changed by them. (Hochschild 1983) portrayed the manage- stable feelings, positive or negative, about There are two types of relatively stable, ment of emotional expressions according to others or about long-term emotions, which are often a back- culturally informed “feeling rules,” especially objects, such as love ground for moods and reflex emotions [Traıni¨ those imposed by employers in a form of ex- and hate, liking and (2009b, p. 194) dubs them “reflexive” as op- ploitation. This book eclipsed the other main disliking, trust or posed to reflex emotions]. Affective loyalties or strands of the emerging sociology of emotions: mistrust, respect or contempt orientations are attachments or aversions: love, Kemper’s (1978) systematic linkage of emo- liking, respect, trust, admiration, and their neg- tional reactions to an individual’s position in hi- Moral emotions: feelings of approval or ative counterparts. They are less tied to short- erarchies of status and power and Heise’s (1979) disapproval (including term assessments of how we are doing in the affect control theory of how we react to dis- of our own selves and world and more to elaborated cognitive ap- rupted expectations. None of these influential actions) based on praisals of others (although the objects need not works was directly concerned with politics, al- moral intuitions or be humans). Finally, moral emotions involve though one of Hochschild’s (1975) earliest dis- principles, such as shame, guilt, pride, Access provided by Harvard University on 09/16/15.