Afterword: acts of affective citizenship? Possibilities and limitations

Abstract

After briefly discussing the ‘affective turn’ in citizenship studies, this afterword discusses the political mobilisation of affect to consider when, where and how affect may be connected to citizenship. It asks: What does it mean and do to speak of affective acts as acts of affective citizenship? I argue that the phrase ‘affective citizenship’ attaches affect to a very specific object: citizenship. Studying affective citizenship requires attention to how some feelings attach themselves to citizenship and to how citizenship itself can evoke certain feelings. But affective citizenship does not occur ‘naturally’: it arises from, requires and/or produces knowledge, labour, and (new) ‘feeling rules’. I conclude with a call for more research into the dynamics of affective citizenship that go beyond a simple opposition between those simply conceived of as agents of disciplinary power and those seen as (resisting) subjects of disciplinary power.

Keywords:

• Affective citizenship
• acts of citizenship
• emotions
• feelings
• investment
• knowledge