Correcting Emotional Deviance: Affective Inclusion Amid Social Inequality and Power Hierarchies

ABSTRACT

This article uses empirical data from a case study in Germany to introduce the concept of “affective inclusion.” Affective inclusion is understood as both an institutional and programmatic response to emotional deviance that arises in the wake of power hierarchies and social inequalities. The aim of these efforts is to incorporate individuals or groups into a dominant emotion culture, especially after their emotions have been labeled as deviant. The empirical study uses a unique combination of qualitative data and methods, including ethnographic observations during an anti-violence program for amateur soccer players and an analysis of a television report on the same workshop. The analysis addresses the social dynamics that determine the processes of affective closure and openness and examines the strategies, practices and techniques that institutional actors employ to address this phenomenon, including teaching emotional control and nudging participants into the prevailing emotion culture. In addition, the study shows how affective inclusion is intertwined with social inequality and discrimination.

Introduction

When people do not feel or express the emotions that are considered appropriate or “right” in certain situations or environments, they can be labeled as emotional deviants (Denzin 1980; Pugliesi 1987; Scarduzio 2011; Scheff and Retzinger 1991). But who decides which emotions are considered right and appropriate in a particular context? As so often, this depends on social, economic or political power. Powerful actors may be able to change emotion norms and rules (Sauerborn 2019a; Thoits 2004), while the emotions of less powerful individuals are more likely to be categorized as deviant (Summers-Effler 2002). These power inequalities are often reflected in institutions, which can be understood by recognizing that institutional actors have a major influence on how emotions are valued, framed and shaped (Churcher et al. 2023).

Yet, not only the labeling of emotional deviants, but also the societal reaction to emotional deviance is influenced by institutional actors. Just as different types of social deviance provoke different social reactions (Mowen, Heitkamp, and Schroeder 2023), the reactions to “emotional deviance” (Thoits 1985, 1990) are also multifaceted. Among the most prominent and widely studied responses is emotion management and labor, which is characterized as the partially intentional and partially unconscious alignment of emotions with emotion norms and more explicit feeling rules (Hochschild 1983; Strauss et al. 1982; Wharton 2009). In addition to these individual efforts to adhere to established emotion norms and rules, institutional actors seek to regulate or control emotions (Jakob Sadeh and Zilber 2019; Lindebaum 2017) or to neutralize emotional deviance (Powell-Williams and Powell-Williams 2017). However, an aspect that has received little attention thus far is the existence of specialized institutional programs designed to address emotional deviance. These programs aim to identify and address emotional patterns that may be perceived as requiring societal or individual correction. But how do these institutional programs operate to rectify the emotions of groups or individuals that has been labeled as emotionally deviant?

This article proposes the concept of affective inclusion to theorize the correction of emotional deviance in an empirically based way. I understand affective inclusion as the institutionalized programmatic endeavors to integrate persons or groups into a dominant emotion culture – after their feelings has been labeled as deviant. Emotion cultures can be defined as intricate systems comprising standardized emotion vocabularies, norms, and beliefs about emotional expressions. These cultural constructs play a pivotal role in shaping notions of power, community, and identity (see Koschut 2017:179). Dominant emotion cultures are those that perceive themselves as socially, culturally, or historically superior to others. These could be emotion cultures associated with specific nations, regions, places, as well as organizations or institutions. Affective inclusion, thus, may encompass governmental, political, and cultural institutions wielding distinct forms of social and cultural influence and authority. Affective inclusion can be found, for example, in integration courses for immigrants and refugees as well as in programs for stress reduction and team building in professional environments (Neckel and Sauerborn 2023). Numerous emotions can be corrected and become the subject of institutional and programmatic interventions, such as depression, aggression and even despondency or melancholy.

In this study, I scrutinize affective inclusion by employing a qualitative methodological combination of ethnographic and media data. The ethnographic data stems from a participatory observation of an anti-violence training designed for amateur soccer players. Additional data was obtained from a television report filmed about this nonviolence training. Drawing on this combination of ethnographic and media data, I investigate multiple analytical aspects of affective inclusion and its connections with social inequality and power dynamics.

Standardized emotions and affects and deviance

Affective inclusion is theoretically grounded in a sociological understanding of the sociality of feelings and their underlying norms and rules. In this article the word “feelings” is used as an umbrella term for any kind of emotions and affects. I conceptualize emotions as feelings that are intentionally directed toward certain tangible objects, occur temporarily, and are tied to evaluations or judgments. Among these are feelings such as fear of spiders, anger at a friend, or joy at an upcoming event. These clearly defined emotions can be theoretically distinguished from affects, which I define as feelings that function relationally, precognitively, and pre-linguistically (Schaefer 2015; Von Scheve 2018; Wetherell 2012).

Sociologists of emotions have presumed for decades that feelings emerge within a cultural and political-historical context and are socially and institutionally shaped (Barbalet 2001; Illouz 2007; Kemper 1978; Reddy 2008; Bericat 2016). A crucial element of this understanding involves the norms and rules associated with emotions, commonly referred to as “feeling rules” or “emotion norms” (Hochschild 1979, 1983; Shott 1979; Thoits 1985). These general social norms and more explicit rules can be discernible and pertain to heavily institutionalized situations and contexts, such as weddings, funerals, and workplaces (Neckel and Sauerborn 2023).

Over recent decades, the normative structure of undefined, relational, and non-directed affects has progressively become the subject of social sciences and humanities (Penz and Sauer 2021; Sauerborn 2019a; Slaby, Mühlhoff, and Wüschner 2019). These studies demonstrate that not only explicit and directed emotions are standardized, but also diffuse phenomena like atmospheres and moods, which are connected to social contexts. Consequently, feelings are invariably embedded within emotion cultures, which convey ideas about which emotional states are considered “appropriate” and “adequate” for specific nations, milieus, organizations, groups, etc. (Ayata 2019; De Leersnyder, Boiger, and Mesquita 2013). Within these emotion cultures, idealized emotions prescribe how individuals should feel and express their feelings in various social situations.

Inextricably linked to feeling norms and rules are the prevailing conceptualizations of emotions, which are discursively and, to some extent, institutionally reproduced, reflecting the respective dominant emotion cultures. Examples include emotionologies (Fineman 2008; Stearns and Stearns 1985) and affective regimes (Penz and Sauer 2021). Emotionologies encompass evaluations and standards pertaining to the appropriateness of the presence and expression of certain emotions in diverse cultural contexts. More precisely, emotionologies denote the social categorization of how particular emotions ought to be managed and expressed (see Fineman 2008:2). Emotionologies serve as emotional and affective guidelines, particularly in institutional and organizational contexts: “They shape and underpin the deference patterns of particular social encounters – what to feel or reveal at weddings, funerals, dinner parties, places of worship, or before a judge” (Fineman 2008:2). Emotionologies differ from affective regimes (Penz and Sauer 2021), which comprise institutionally prescribed affective rules. Affective regimes consist of norms and rules that are less concerned with discrete, temporary emotions than with undirected and partially preconscious affects. This focus on affects implies that affective regimes include the normalization of diffuse, relational affective states that occur between bodies. For example, a particular “mood” may prevail within an organization, associated with desirable and undesirable expressions of feelings.

Emotional Deviance

Scholars have thus far sporadically investigated deviations from feeling rules, classifications, and patterns. This kind of deviance refers to discrepancies between what a person is supposed to feel and what they actually feel (Goussinsky 2015). Just like deviance from any social norm, deviance from feeling norms is frequently sanctioned. Consequently, social processes are designed to emotionally manage or proactively prevent these deviations. An emotion-specific “norm-state discrepancy” (Thoits 1985:227) may arise from various social causes.

On the individual level, multiple roles and identities, as well as role or identity transitions, can contribute to emotional deviance (Thoits 1985, 1990). In some contexts, a parent at work worrying about sick children at home might experience workplace emotions that deviate from the norm (Thoits 2004). Likewise, biographical changes such as marriage, divorce, parenthood, or unemployment can entail new affective expectations that individuals struggle to fulfill (see Lois 2009 study on maternal emotional deviance, for example).

Given that feeling rules are economically, politically, and culturally anchored, deviance from them cannot be comprehended without considering structural conditions. Varying roles within the same profession or discrepancies between gender, milieu, and class affiliations can result in diverse forms of emotional deviance (Summers-Effler 2002; Thoits 1990). When institutional actors label individuals or groups as deviants or rule violators, they sometimes convert this emotional deviance into a social role. Subsequently, these individuals bear the stigma of the deviant, whose emotions necessitate correction.

Typically, studies of emotional deviance have focused on individual processes of subsequent emotion management or emotion work, rather than on the social response to such deviance (Hochschild 1983; Strauss et al. 1982). However, emotional deviance does not always culminate in emotional adaptation; it can also serve as a privileged instrument of distinction as it can yield advantages (for instance, the deliberate use of deviant emotions in power positions to maintain order (Scarduzio 2011)).

Numerous studies and theoretical frameworks have addressed emotion management as the purposeful adjustment of emotions to align with existing norms, ideals, and expectations (Wharton 2009). This research on emotion management as a response to emotional deviance primarily focuses on the efforts that individuals or groups initiate themselves to rectify or conform (e.g., Sauerborn 2019a; Shuler and Davenport Sypher 2000). Sociological literature has paid much less attention to institutional responses to emotional deviants (but see for instance De Jordy and Barrett 2014; Jakob Sadeh and Zilber 2019; Powell-Williams and Powell-Williams 2017). Thus, this article examines institutional actors who try to integrate groups and individuals who are considered emotionally deviant into certain norms and related cultures. A particular focus will be on the interplay between emotions labeled as deviant, social inequality, and power hierarchies. I call these institutional processes of correcting emotional deviance “affective inclusion,” based on processes of social and affective closure and opening.

Affective openness and closedness: emotional deviance and institutional reactions

As with any social phenomenon, communities and societies connected through common emotion cultures can exhibit varying levels of openness or closedness. Here, I draw upon Max Weber’s insights regarding social relations that underpin the concept of social closure. This perspective encompasses exclusionary processes that communities employ to optimize the benefits derived from restricting access to privileges and resources. Strategies of social closure are predicated on two types of action: exclusion and solidarism (see Parkin 2001 [1974]: 4). Exclusion refers to the closure mechanisms that communities utilize to stabilize their authority and privileges, while solidarism can be construed as the “collective responses of excluded groups” (Parkin 2001 [1974]: 5).

When it comes to assessing the openness or closedness of communities, Weber does not differentiate between subjectively experienced and rationally motivated connections (see Mackert 2020:156). As such, this concept can be linked to the formation of emotional and affective structures and communities. In contrast to rational relationships (which Weber primarily conceptualized in economic terms), “affective closures,” as I refer to them in this article, are not necessarily rooted in economic means-end rationality. Various factors can contribute to the closedness of certain communities sharing similar feeling rules and ideals. The affective valorization of traditions, norms, and conventions, for instance, might play a role in maintaining and stabilizing these communities.

The notion of closedness and a sense of stasis in relationships have rarely been discussed in contemporary affect research, which tends to emphasize the dynamics, fluidity, and processuality of affects and relations. Investigations of “emotional communities” (Rosenwein 2006) and “affective communities” (Zink 2019), for example, typically do not place significant emphasis on closure processes. Instead, they concentrate on the transformability of such communities, characterized by their overlap and blending with other communities and their adaptability in terms of situation, context, time, role, etc. Nonetheless, the persistence and inertia of some societies and communities are particularly relevant for the examination of affective closure and affective inclusion, as this resistance to change is also highly affective (Bernhardt and Slaby 2022).

An example of an affectively closed community is illustrated in Elias and Scotson’s seminal work, The Established and the Outsiders (1994 [1965]). Long-standing residents in an English suburb responded to newcomers with strong efforts to maintain distance, particularly through stigmatization. They aimed to preserve their group’s homogeneity and prevent new residents from gaining access. This boundary underscored the unequal, hierarchical dynamic between established residents and outsiders, emphasizing the impermeability of both communities. Numerous examples of such affectively closed communities can be observed in everyday situations, such as the fan section at a soccer stadium (Wetzels 2022), the inner circle of upper management (Sauerborn 2019a), or even families or circles of friends with their unique emotionologies and affective regimes.

Social closure and its affective components have been studied mainly in the context of the closure mechanisms themselves (Parkin 2001 [1974]) and the measures taken by those who are excluded, as originally outlined by Weber. Conversely, the processes of opening have received limited attention. These processes allow individuals or groups to access communities that are otherwise characterized by their partial closure. This is precisely the focus of affective inclusion. By addressing emotions and affects, I therefore bring a new perspective to this field: the institutionalized means of communities that both facilitate social closure and regulate the opening of these communities through deliberate governance strategies.

Methods

The conceptual exploration of affective inclusion in this article is based on a case study using ethnographic fieldwork and media analysis consistent with grounded theory methodology (Strauss and Corbin 1990). The empirical foundation consists of two distinct but related qualitative data sources. The ethnographic data stem from the participation in an anti-violence training for amateur soccer players in Germany. This prevention program, developed by a soccer association, is designed for players who have been sentenced by a sports court to attend the workshop or have demonstrated improper behavior on the field, such as verbal insults or physical violence toward other players or referees. A student assistant took part in the workshop as a regular participant. He took field notes and made audio recordings of the workshop, which he later transcribed. Being an amateur soccer player himself, it was beneficial that he attended the workshop and was therefore able to participate in the practical part of the workshop where everyone played soccer together. In his observations, he focused in particular on the practices and techniques that were used as standardized elements of the program to help participants learn to better manage their aggression. He also documented specific wording and techniques used by the coaches to discuss the sanctioned behavior of the players. All participants and workshop leaders were informed about the study before the start of the training and agreed to the student assistant taking part and recording the conversations. The recordings involved primarily interactions between the coaches and the players, especially during the practical part on the football pitch, which could not be recorded for technical reasons. Names and descriptions of both participants and trainers were altered for anonymization purposes.

During the participatory observation of this anti-violence training, a German tabloid television team attended the workshop as well. The television team filmed the workshop, conducted interviews, and produced two television reports about this program. These media reports provided additional data which accentuated in a particularly polarizing way the depiction of emotional deviance and its institutional treatment.

The various data formats necessitated distinct analytical methods. I analyzed the textual data in terms of memos and transcripts of the workshop by using grounded theory methodology coding techniques (Charmaz 2006). In the open coding phase, emotions and affects served as sensitizing concepts to structure the data. When participants used specific emotion words such as feelings, aggression, anger, etc., I selected these data segments to analyze them in more detail. I followed the same procedure when the participants talked about situations that they described as very upsetting or heated, even if no specific emotion words were used. During the focused and axial coding stages, I then focused on rules, norms, guidelines, and idealizations associated with emotions. To prevent biased analyses, I organized an interpretation group where we regularly discussed and compared the data (see Berli 2021 for more on this approach).

To analyze the media data, I downloaded the two television reports on the anti-violence workshop from the television channel’s media library. These reports were broadcast as part of a regional tabloid evening program, with the primary report lasting around three-and-a-half minutes and the second, shorter episode running for approximately one minute. As with the text data, I imported the video data into the MAXQDA software to transcribe and code it. The software for qualitative data analysis is suitable for organizing and coding text and video data (Sauerborn 2019b). Emotions also served as sensitizing concepts when analyzing the videos. However, as the contributions were very short, there was hardly any material that could not be subjected to a deeper in-depth analysis. In the analysis of the ethnographic and media data, the focus was on the practices, techniques and representations of the institutional actors, as well as on the narratives and design of the program, rather than on the participants.

Processes of affective inclusion and closure

To shed light on the processes of affective inclusion and closure, I will discuss the strategies and techniques employed by institutional actors to incorporate the expression and feeling of deviant emotions within the prevailing emotion culture. I examine the television data to explore how institutional actors establish a dominant emotion culture, address deviations from it, and consider the influence of issues related to inequality and power dynamics.

Affective inclusion: a case of institutionalized correction

The focus of the case study is a program for soccer players who have been suspended for rule violations. This workshop illustrates how institutional actors open up dominant emotional cultures to emotional deviants on the one hand, but also stabilize them on the other.

Anti-aggression-training for amateur soccer players

This workshop is led by two anti-violence trainers, Max and Tony. Max is a trained police officer who has worked for decades as a professional anti-violence trainer with adolescents as well as in prisons. Tony is a soccer referee.

Prior to the anti-violence workshop, two members of our research team had a conversation with 55-year-old trainer Max. In this conversation, he explained the concept of the workshop, which draws on the integrative potential of sports. Before the implementation of this anti-violence training program, soccer players with serious infractions were removed from their teams and faced individual sanctions. In most cases, they did not make a return to the field after their suspension. To prevent this and to deter deviant behavior, representatives from two local soccer associations collaborated to establish an anti-violence program. This program encompasses a one-day workshop for players who have been sanctioned by the soccer court. Three to six players participate in a workshop which consists of a theoretical and practical component. Initially, the players reflect their misbehavior with the trainers. After this theoretical phase, participants engage in a simulated soccer game designed to provoke their emotional reactions. These provocations primarily involve verbal insults, which the trainers shout from the sidelines toward the players on the field. Throughout various soccer drills, the players are expected to apply the insights they gained from the conversations held during the initial phase of the workshop. Finally, there is a closing session for further reflection, featuring self-evaluation exercises and team-building activities. Throughout the workshop, players can accumulate points by demonstrating their comprehension of the workshop’s content. If they earn more than half of the total points available, their suspension is lifted, and they are placed on probation.

Three amateur soccer players participated in the workshop. Emilio, a 20-year-old mason; Nick, an 18-year-old student; and Richard, a 66-year-old retiree who previously worked in telecommunications. Both Emilio and Nick have immigrant backgrounds. Emilio had to attend the workshop due to insults and aggressive behavior on the field, while Nick received a red card following a violent incident. Richard was required to participate in the program for what he described as a misunderstanding stemming from a conflict with a referee. Richard’s case was barely discussed during the workshop. The atmosphere is notably relaxed, with plenty of banter between trainers and players.

Lessons in emotional control

The main aim of the anti-violence program is to teach participants how to effectively manage and control their emotions. Within the program, an uncontrolled outburst is portrayed as the opposite of a rational, reasoned, and thoughtful reaction. Tony and Max consistently designate emotionality and players’ emotions as a problem that participants need to work on. Dialogues are fast-paced, and the trainers initially avoid lengthy statements. Max and Tony utilize questioning techniques that sometimes resemble interrogation tactics.

Emilio: “ … Nah, I ain’t never drop the ‘n bomb’ on a black referee. He’s my ‘homie,’ he is ‘black,’ you know

Max: “Let’s say you’re really pissed, like seriously ticked off. And he blows the whistle on you three damn times? You still cool with that?”

Emilio: “Yeah, no doubt.”

Max: “No doubt?”

Emilio: “No doubt.”

Max: “So he’s part of the crew, right?”

Emilio: “Yes.”

Max: “Alright, to a white referee it wouldn’t do any good to say ‘you n … a’”

Richard: “You can always toss out a “You Nazi.” That hits him where it hurts too.“

Max (to Emilio): “You’re gonna play that card?”

Emilio: “Na, white bread.”

Tony: “White bread is solid.”

Max: “As long as it’s an insult, right?”

The deliberate use of insults and provocations is a critical aspect of the workshop. In this context, the trainer’s direct racist and derogatory remarks toward the players and their family members, aiming to provoke an emotional reaction. For instance, trainer Max repeatedly calls Emilio “n … a,” which the two then assess together following the practical phase of the simulated soccer game.

Max: “ … If you nutmeg me three times, I’m frustrated. And then I’ll be like: ‘I’m going to show the n … a today, he’s gonna get it.’”

Emilio: “Hah, I love this word. I swear, it’s so intense. How often was it? Twenty times?”

Max: “Today? Sure. Well, that was sort of the point, right? Same goes for ‘son of a bitch.’ You can switch out the word, but what it’s trying to trigger is always the same. They want you to lose it. And then I’ve got what I wanted.”

The concept of institutionalized verbal sparring is not a new phenomenon. Scholars have extensively studied one such form, known as the Dozens, which is played in working-class African-American communities (see, for example, Abrahams 1962; Dollard 1939). In the Dozens, two players exchange insults in front of an audience, often targeting the other’s mother or sisters, but also focusing on personal traits such as appearance, sexuality, and intelligence. The Dozens is a performance and an institutionalized format that aims to provoke a reaction, akin to the preventive soccer workshop in our case study. However, the workshop’s goal is to teach soccer players how to avoid such emotional outbursts.

Nick (to Emilio): If this was a regular game, you would’ve lost your cool with him. You would have been like: “You wanna catch one right in your face?”

Emilio: “Then I would’ve been like, running beside him like: “You little jerk, cunt, I’ll fuck you up, dude, watch out, one on one, come here.”

Richard: “Don’t you think you can control that? It was just, like, an exercise.”

Max: “if you can control it in practice, why can’t you control it in the game? […]

Nick: “The emotions, man!”

Max: “But you still gotta handle them here. You came in all fired up.”

Nick: “But there’s nothing at stake here.”

Max: “Of course, there’s never anything at stake.”

Nick: “It’s like when I’m ballin’ in the streets, right? Then someone talks smack and I laugh it off. But if, I don’t know, it’s the championship or something, and somebody tries to front, bro, my emotions go wild. Not even trying to be aggressive, but in general, my heart is pumping. I’m trying to win this thing, and then someone fucks with me? You bet I’m gonna clap back at ‘em, no doubt.“

Feelings are supposed to be controlled and managed by a “conscious decision” (Max) that should never be made “from emotions” (Max). This “rational” behavior is idealized as the actions of an exemplary affective regime (Penz and Sauer 2021) or emotion culture. In soccer, it includes the control of aggression and anger. Teaching emotional control serves as a form of affective openness; those who are labeled as emotional deviants can be included as long as they actively work on their emotional control.

Emotions and lifestyle

To continue participating in soccer tournaments and maintain emotional control, players should not only work on their emotions but also transform their lives in general. Emotions here have the function of reflecting an entire lifestyle. According to the narrative, anyone who does not have their emotions under control will not have their life under control either. However, this connection also means that a certain lifestyle can be changed by controlling emotions. Nick tells Emilio to “change his lifestyle” to achieve his dream of moving up to a higher soccer league. Max supports this notion, stressing that Emilio will only “get an opportunity” if he has already made life changes before joining the higher division. Emilio is advised to stop partying before soccer games, as he often shows up hungover and, as a result, becomes more irritable during games.

“This soccer match, that’s some real crucial stuff for you, right? It ain’t starting at 10 when you gotta meet up at 9 in the morning, It begins on the evening before. Like, if I’m all messed up, still rollin’ with like 3.5 promille in my system, I ain’t chill, ain’t relaxed.” (Max)

The affective regime of being in control of one’s feelings applies not only on the soccer field but is extended to the individual’s entire lifestyle and socio-economic background. Players are told that they will have better opportunities and be able to advance socially if their feelings and actions align with the dominant emotion culture. Thus, Emilio’s emotional outbursts are portrayed as determining his entire social being. He is no longer just taught to keep his emotions under control in critical situations during a soccer match. Emilio is suggested to adjust his lifestyle in such a way that aggressive reactions are prevented overall. Max often refers to the “guys from prison” he has encountered during his anti-violence work in penitentiaries:

… If you listen to the stories of the guys in jail, nothing was intentional at all. No, it wasn’t. But it is a consequence of your actions. … If you grab someone here and push him away. He trips on the curb and then right at the same time a truck happens to drive by, rolls over his head and flattens it. You’re not going to be happy about that afterwards. And … there are various injuries especially with indoor soccer, where there’s only a push, someone loses their balance. You don’t even need to make a fist and intentionally hit someone in the face. He probably positions himself, sets himself a bit before. Maybe he can even get out of the way so that you don’t hit him full on. But it’s those situations that come from emotions, where nobody’s expecting them and nobody’s really focused or in control, that the risk of getting hurt is always there, of course. … Soccer is a sport where there are really serious injuries, even when that isn’t my intention. One-on-one, I don’t know, tackling … Then suddenly a tendon tears or something else. I don’t even need to make a sliding tackle or clench my fist. It just happens.

The underlying message here is that even occasional emotional outbursts can set off a domino effect culminating in social decline.

“Nudging” into the prevailing affective regime

The guidelines conveyed for acting and feeling vacillate between self-responsibility and general social rules. Although participants in the workshop collectively concur that racist slurs and statements constitute transgressions and that individuals uttering such expressions have no place “on the soccer field” (Tony), the significance of individual interpretation of a given statement is persistently emphasized. Players are expected to independently discern whether or not they perceive racist or insulting language as offensive – an ideal conceptualization of emotion management.

The approach employed by anti-violence trainers exhibits parallels with a behavioral economic strategy known as “nudging,” which has been explored among others by Bröckling (2017). Nudging refers to a technique of inducing individuals to make better decisions, with the aim of altering their convictions. In other words, nudging is a means by which economic and political actors can assist individuals in protecting themselves from their own negative impulses (see Bröckling 2017:186–87). The technique of “soft paternalism” underlying this approach involves intervening in an individual’s lifestyle (Bröckling 2017:187), and is also evident in processes of affective inclusion. In these processes, the promise of social advancement and a better life is linked to an individual’s ability to control their emotions and affective responses. Similarly to nudging, this can be seen as an attempt to push individuals to adapt their emotions and behaviors to the prevailing cultural norms.

Affective inclusion, social inequality, and discrimination

In the present case, affective inclusion is closely intertwined with discrimination and dealing with experiences of discrimination. The workshop attendees are not only emotional deviants. Because of the focus on Emilio and Nick and their non-German heritage, their labeling as outsiders cannot be understood without considering categories such as race and class. Particularly relevant for the concept of affective inclusion, however, is that these structural characteristics of the deviants are addressed only incidentally and implicitly, while their emotional and affective feelings and behavior are the focus. The players are not explicitly portrayed as outsiders due to their skin color, but rather because of their perceived inability to regulate their emotions. Consequently, emotions and affect also play a symbolic role in this depiction.

But what does this prevention program tell us about rules and norms as well as deviance from them and institutional correction? Although the anti-violence workshop is addressed to people who have violated established and clearly sanctioned rules of sport the participants are predominantly reprimanded with respect to their emotional behavior. Moreover, the program addresses nuanced affective norms and affective regimes, wherein the aggressive behavior of a working-class Black adolescent is assessed differently than the emotional outbursts of a senior White retiree. Which and whose emotions are labeled as deviant is not only a question of socially desirable emotions on the soccer field, but also of social hierarchies and power constellations. The emotional outbursts of the black working-class youth undergo evaluation and correction that considers their broader social background. Hierarchies of race and class also apply with regard to emotions and their expression. Moreover, the notion of proper and adequate feelings arises not only in relation to certain situations and contexts, but also to the people who express them. It is hard to imagine, for example, similar initiatives aimed at male managers who lose their composure in the workplace.

The management of interpersonal atmospheres and emotional states among players and teams is as central to the workshop’s objectives (albeit implicitly) as the influence of physical movements, incidents, and postures. While the program seeks to prevent aggression and violence on the soccer field, in practice it also includes fundamentally therapeutic techniques for regulating emotions. Violators of formal rules, which at first glance are ostensibly unambiguous, are thus often sanctioned for underlying emotional and affective rules that are rather diffuse and frequently cannot be explicated verbally. This case study examines amateur soccer players penalized by a sports court for infractions that appear, on the surface, to breach “objective” regulations. However, the anti-violence workshop reveals a hierarchy of deviant conduct that emerges from both structural features and the social relevance of emotions and affects. Generally, it is difficult to identify social deviants because everyone repeatedly violates various social rules, while obeying numerous others (Giddens 1997). While the sports court’s explicit rules do mitigate this issue, the workshop also illustrates that some deviance warrant affective inclusion, while others do not. The determination of group membership relies not solely on emotional outbursts but also on additional social attributes, that are inextricably linked to the unequal societal assessment of emotions and affects (Shields 2005).

Affective closure: a case of media polarization

The television report about the anti-violence workshop contained numerous mechanisms and polarizing illustrations that contribute to affective closure, while concurrently emphasizing the need for affective inclusion.

Media portrayal of emotional deviants

Emilio is the protagonist and focus of both episodes of the report. The supporting narrative portrays Emilio as an emotionally explosive troublemaker with deviant behavior, whom anti-violence trainer Max must get “back on track.” In her introduction, the host of the show announces that the report is about “violence in soccer” and players “who bash heads.” This is followed by blurry cell phone recordings of violence at amateur soccer games. In the pixelated videos, young men are seen shoving and fighting on a soccer field. A narrator voice offstage declares this is the “bitter reality” that “has nothing to do with soccer.” These stark, stereotypical images of violence-prone, aggressive young men, predominantly with immigrant backgrounds, serve to perpetuate common perceptions of deviant behavior and emotions.

Correction of emotional deviants in the media

Particularly in soccer, where fair play transcends the sport’s rules and is considered a normative ideal, violence in amateur matches has come to symbolize emotional tendencies that necessitate correction and adjustment. This task is supposed to be taken on by the second main figure of the television report, anti-violence trainer Max. Portrayed as empathetic and grounded, Max is shown attempting to engage with the violent soccer players on equal terms. He emphasizes the importance of “listening” within his workshop, implying a therapeutically open approach toward these troubled adolescents. The report includes quotes by Max stating that participants like Emilio have not failed in general as human beings – in contrast what they are often told – but rather “have messed up this one time.” Max’s primary objective is to help them internalize this perspective: that players are not “entirely bad, entirely terrible, entirely evil,” but have simply made a mistake that now has to be redeemed.

This emphasis on human imperfection has two implications. On the one hand, it explicitly accounts for the deviant behavior and feelings. On the other hand, it offers the possibility of redemption and the correction of such behavior. The deviant player simply needs to adapt to what is presented as the dominant and “correct” emotion culture. Emilio ultimately explains this emotionality himself in the television report, recounting an instance when he responded appropriately: Another player shoved him and called him a “little chocolate bar.” Emilio simply stood up, looked at him, laughed and kept playing. The message here is clear: players should keep cool when provoked and should not react to violence with their own violence. The same situation was also previously discussed in the theory part of the training. Coach Max complimented Emilio’s cool reaction to this racial slur, commenting “I’d give you an A for that!” The impression is thus created that there is a clearly understandable ranking system of emotions.

The main episode of the television report ends optimistically with the promise of a happy ending through Emilio’s transformation. His suspension will soon be lifted, and he will be allowed to play in a tournament. At this tournament Emilio wants to show that he has changed. The report concludes with the following summary: “Thanks to Max and his seminar, Emilio now knows how he can score on the playing field with performance instead of violence.”

By centering on Emilio, a Black working-class youth, the television report perpetuates social closure that bolsters stereotypical affective associations related to class and ethnicity. The White, grounded anti-violence trainer emerges as a savior-like figure, aiding the emotionally deviant individual in returning to the right path. The overlaid visuals of clashing youths at the report’s inception unequivocally convey the presence of an emotional breach that requires rectification and alignment with the appropriate emotion culture.

Affective inclusion: power instrument and preservation of affective regimes

The study demonstrates that affective inclusion can be understood as a social process aimed at integrating emotional deviants into the prevailing emotion culture. Affective closure serves as the foundation for this process, promoting the maintenance and stability of emotion norms, rules, and ideals within a group, community, or organization. The presupposition for affective inclusion is that the feelings – either sensed or depicted – of these emotional deviants have first been labeled as deviant. Offerings for affective inclusion can be found especially in institutional programs and curricula that more or less explicitly refer to feeling rules with a national, cultural, milieu-specific, or situational basis.

The necessity for affective inclusion, as determined by the actors involved, stems from conflicting feeling rules that collide in certain contexts, with their incompatibility then being institutionally negotiated. Affective inclusion aims to avert the simultaneity of disparate emotion ideals within a social group or context. This is achieved through practices employed by representatives of the dominant emotion culture (e.g., organizations or institutions) that endeavor to assimilate the perceived deviant feeling rules.

This institutional correction of deviant feelings is supposed to target feeling-specific conflictual constellations and dynamics, wherein distinct feeling rules are assigned varying significance. These social assessments lead to a hierarchization of emotion cultures. Depending on the context, some feelings are labeled “better” or “more adequate” than others, prompting efforts to amend the deviants’ feelings. Conversely, this pressures deviants to confront discrimination and engage in specific forms of “inclusion work” (Kwon 2022).

The development of programs for affective inclusion is frequently preceded by social changes, during which new feeling rules – perhaps previously regarded as foreign and insignificant – gain relevance. Examples include immigration processes, wherein the destination country’s feeling rules are perceived as “natural” and “appropriate,” while the immigrants’ feeling rules are deemed foreign and requiring adjustment. Another form of affective inclusion encompasses more preventative measures to avoid the undermining of organized and institutionally stabilized emotionologies and affective regimes. Examples of this might include a workshop that convey a company’s emotion culture to both new and experienced employees.

Deviant behavior and its sanctioning are always tied to social power and class. Not all violations of a social norm are punished or even noted as such, and members of some classes and milieus are allowed to violate more and different norms and rules than others. Before emotional deviants can be integrated, they must be identified and labeled as such. This is based on power structures that induce a hierarchical order of emotion cultures. It is only upon deeming the emotional expressions of individuals or collectives as inappropriate that systematic institutional efforts can be initiated to rectify the aberrant emotional manifestations.

Affective inclusion may thus be conceptualized as a form of disciplining emotional deviance. Emotional deviance is frequently ascribed such significance that its social sanctioning transcends purely emotional and affective components. Often it is not only deviant feelings that are sanctioned, but the accompanying deviant attitudes, actions and situational definitions (Von Scheve 2013).

Summary and conclusions

Using a qualitative case study approach, I have developed an empirically grounded understanding of affective inclusion. Based on ethnographic data collected during participant observation of an anti-violence training program for suspended soccer players and the analysis of a tabloid TV report about the workshop, I have formulated a novel sociological concept for dealing with deviations from emotion cultures. Building upon the theoretical foundations of Weber and Parkin, I examined the television data and introduced the concepts of affective closure and opening. These notions pertain to the deliberate maintenance of dominant groups’ prevailing emotion cultures and affective regimes, as well as their conditional accessibility. By employing uniform feeling rules and ideals, groups and communities can either affectively close themselves off to emotional deviants or attempt to transform deviants into conformists.

The relevance of deviance from feeling rules in specific national, cultural, or group-specific contexts is evident in the curricula of affective inclusion. This social process encompasses an opening of affectively closed communities or groups. Affective inclusion initiatives are based on efforts to integrate emotional deviants as well as emotions that are considered foreign or inappropriate into the prevailing and perceived “natural” emotion cultures. Consequently, questions of belonging to specific groups, nations, or cultures are negotiated through the evaluation of emotional experiences and expressions.

Affective inclusion frequently occurs between social classes. Analogous to all forms of social closure, the affective closure underpinning affective inclusion is regarded as “inherently antagonistic” (Parkin 2001 [1974]). This process is preceded by the labeling of emotional deviants, which explicitly underscores the need for affective inclusion. In this way, the carriers of affective inclusion maintain social control and decision-making authority about who is allowed into their community and under which conditions. Affective inclusion can thus be understood as a tool of institutional power and control that reinforces social and affective closure through an apparent opening.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Grant SFB 1171 – 258523721.

Notes on contributors

Elgen Sauerborn

Elgen Sauerborn is a sociologist working at the Collaborative Research Center “Affective Societies” at the Free University of Berlin. Her research interests include the sociology of emotions, sociology of knowledge, social inequality, and qualitative methods.