Every so often, the development of science and philosophy in our societies has been marked by transformations that 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 from a detour, a rotation, a turn, an alteration, a turn. 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 the last decades there has been a set of works that have been grouped under the name of “Affective Turn” .

What is the Affective Turn?

The Affective Turn is a term used to refer to different works within the social sciences , whose theoretical intention is mainly set out in two ways (Lara and Enciso, 2013): interest in the emotions that inhabit public life, on the one hand, and the effort to produce knowledge that deepens this emotionalisation of public life (in contrast to the rationalisation characteristic of the traditional sciences), on the other.

It is said to be a “Giro” because it represents a break with the object of study on which the production of knowledge had traditionally been based within the social sciences. 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 theory of the Network Actor (which connects especially with scientific studies on technology), feminist movements and theories, cultural geography, poststructuralism (which connects especially with art), some theories within the neurosciences, among others.

Likewise, some of the antecedents for this change of route to what we know as “Affective Turn”, are the psychosocial theories originated in the second half of the 20th century, such as socioconstructionism, social discursive psychology, cultural studies of emotions , interpretative sociology, sociolinguistics, among others (which in turn had taken up several of the more classical theories of sociology, anthropology and phenomenological philosophy).

Three theoretical-practical consequences of the Affective Turn

Something that emerged from “Giro Linguistico” 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 would give an account of how (body) experience is connected to public life, and visceverse .

Likewise, and without being exempt from criticism and controversy, this proposal derived in the construction of different research methods, where not only emotions and affections gained strength; but also interactions, discourses, body or gender (and their cultural and historical variability), as social and psychic mobilizers; and also as powerful knowledge builders.

Next, we will follow the analyses of Lara and Enciso (2013; 2014) to synthesize three of the theoretical and methodological consequences of the Affective Turn .

1. Rethinking 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 the institutions and their sectors (the media, health, legality, etc,), which affect the way we relate to each other and the way we experience the world.

In turn, emotion and affection are corporeal phenomena (they take place in the body, because they “affect”, connect the body with the world; they are experiences that are felt and occur on a preconscious level). These phenomena can be displaced and also transmitted through speech.

Thus, the body stops being only an entity or a stable, fixed or determined organism; it is also understood as a process that has a biological mediation, but it is not the only one .

In short, affection and emotions become important as a unit of analysis, with which the body goes beyond 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. Affection or emotion?

Something that has been especially discussed from the Affective Turn, is the difference and the relationship between “affection” and “emotion”, and later on “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 force or intensity of the experience, which predisposes to action; and emotion would be the pattern of corporeal-brain responses that are culturally recognized and that delimit the form of social encounters.

On the other hand, “feeling” (a concept that has been developed in a particularly important way in the part of 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 starts from 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 , with which, it is necessary to resort to different orientations.

For example, some of the methods that gain strength from the Affective Gyre have been discursive methodologies, narrative analyses, empirical approaches; in connection with genetic sciences, quantum physics, neurosciences or information theories.

Bibliographic references

  • Enciso, G. and Lara, A. (2014). Emotions and Social Sciences in the 20th Century: the prequel to the Affective Turn. Athenea Digital, 14(1): 263-288.
  • Lara, A. and Enciso, G. (2013). The Affective Turn. Athenea Digital, 13(3): 101-119.