Beyond ‘voice’, beyond ‘agency’, beyond ‘politics’? Hybrid childhoods and some critical reflections on children's emotional geographies

In this paper I argue that a significant proportion of research on children's emotional geographies has been deployed to reinforce the importance of children's ‘voices’, their (independent) ‘agency’, and the various ways in which voice/agency maybe deemed ‘political’. Without wishing to dismiss or dispense with such approaches, I explore potential ways to go ‘beyond’ concerns with voice/agency/politics. Initially, I review studies of children's participation (and participatory methods), activism and everyday lives that mobilise emotion and affect in productive ways. I contrast such studies with important questions raised by a reinvigoration of interest in the need for children to be able to represent themselves. I then explore the possibilities raised by so-called ‘hybrid’ conceptions of childhood – which go beyond biosocial dualisms – to enable further strides beyond voice/agency. Drawing on examples from alternative education and contemporary attachment theories, I explore some potential implications for children's emotional geographies and relational geographies of age of what I term ‘more-than-social’ emotional relations. Yet I do not offer an unequivocal endorsement of these hybrid emotions. Thus, I end the paper by issuing some words of caution – both in terms of the critical questions raised by more-than-social emotional relations, specifically, and in terms of engendering broader debate about how and why scholars do (children's) emotional geographies.     

A transnational family story: A narrative inquiry on the emotional and intergenerational notions of ‘home’

At the core of migratory experiences lie key questions pertaining to one's emotional changing Self: the complexity of conflicting identities, feelings of (un)belonging, varying degrees of emotional place (un)attachment, and the fundamental (re)conceptualizations of ‘home’. Though well-studied from various angles, ‘home’ as an emotional concept in the context of generational family migration research has many gains yet to be made. Through an in-depth study on three generations of one author's own family, this paper provides personal insight into the intergenerational and emotional dimensions of this topic. Unanimously, the findings demonstrate that notions of ‘home’ as where family is remain predominant, with ties to transnationally dispersed family members rendering ‘home’ as multiple. Places of familial heritage further remain central in conceptualizations of ‘home’ through a retainment of cultural practices and values derived from familial homelands. Despite these cross-generational similarities, challenges and emotional uncertainties on the topic are seen to be increasingly prevalent in the youngest generation. Above all, interviewees' post-migration reflections demonstrate that such conceptualizations are intricate, relational and do not exist in an emotional vacuum.     

'Thank Goodness That's Over': The Evolutionary Story

If, as the new tenseless theory of time maintains, there are no tensed facts, then why do our emotional lives seem to suggest that there are? This question originates with Prior’s ‘Thank Goodness That’s Over’ problem, and still presents a significant challenge to the new B–theory of time. We argue that this challenge has more dimensions to it than has been appreciated by those involved in the debate so far. We present an analysis of the challenge, showing the different questions that a B–theorist must answer in order to meet it. The debate has focused on the question of what is the object of my relief when an unpleasant experience is past. We outline the prevailing response to this question. The additional, and neglected, questions are, firstly –‘Why does the same event elicit different emotional responses from us depending on whether it is in the past, present, or future?’ And secondly –‘Why do we care more about proximate future pain than about distant future pain?’ We give B–theory answers to these questions, which appeal to evolutionary considerations.     

Emotional Literacy: Education for Meaning

The relevance of ‘emotional literacy’ and ‘emotional intelligence’ to education has become a subject of considerable interest to educationalists and policy‐makers. There is little difference between the way these two terms are currently used. There is, though, a need to draw a distinction between projects that are about instructing young people in how to manage their emotions so as to improve their social behaviour, and those that aim instead to help young people develop levels of emotional understanding that will motivate their desire to learn, enhance their general awareness and stimulate their capacity to engage with questions of values and spirituality.     

Learning to feel at home. Governing homelessness and the politics of affect

The emotional and affective dynamics of homelessness are an established matter of concern in geographical research. Geographers have called attention to homelessness as an embodied phenomenon and to the emotional distress that affects people experiencing homelessness. What has achieved less attention though are the politics of affect that characterize spaces of care. Attempts to make homeless people ‘housing ready’ often target emotions and try to provide clients with a sense of belonging and feelings of responsibility in matters of housekeeping and homemaking. The paper takes these attempts to create emotionally stable ‘housing ready’ selves as a point of departure to open a set of broader questions concerning the nature of encounters between the welfare state and its citizens. It shows how spaces of care address ‘housing readiness’ as a personal ability and thereby abstract from the complex affective entanglements and prepersonal conditions that characterize dwelling. To highlight the paradoxical effects of therapeutic approaches to dwelling as a subjective emotional skill that can be mastered, I contrast the notion of ‘housing readiness’ with recent work in the field of affective geographies that allows for a different articulation of dwelling as a dense web of practices, atmospheres and relations between people, spaces and things.     

Love in therapy: A qualitative study of how clients perceive their therapists’ emotions

Relevant literature on attachment theory has explored the importance of emotional experience inside the therapeutic setting, highlighting that the active engagement of the therapist with the client is necessary in the process of change. However, less is known about the clients’ perception of the therapists’ emotional expression during a session. In this qualitative study, we used narrative thematic analysis to examine 10 semi-structured interviews with clients in an enriched systemic therapy approach. Focusing on the similarities of clients’ experiences, what emerged from the interviews were specific ‘perceived emotions’ and the related facial expressions of the therapists that were given attention by the clients. Based on our findings, six emotional themes were identified and are considered prominent: (i) ‘excitement’, (ii) ‘calmness’, (iii) ‘affection’, (iv) ‘empathy’, (v) ‘anger’ and (vi) ‘sadness’. Also, the analysis revealed two distinct functions of the expression of the therapist’s emotions: (i) they are an essential part of the therapeutic relationship and, (ii) they provide clients with alternative ways of experiencing emotions and motivate them to change. Therapists are invited to recognize the importance of their own emotional and facial expression in therapy considering it a form of self-disclosure. Suggestions for further research are also provided.     

Between ticks and people: Responding to nearbys and contentments

Ticks, their bodies, the affects and emotions they inspire, the diseases they potentially carry, raise questions that are different, though not unrelated, to those concerning the dogs, lab rats, chickens, or wolves more typically encountered in Animal Studies. Engaging with such questions leads us to consider a ‘geography of nearby’ that attends to the spatial, emotional, behavioural, taxonomic, historical, ecological, topographies that tie particular humans and creatures together in particular ways. As an example of how this geography of the nearby infuses material encounters, practices and theories, this paper attends to the way that ethics is framed within the Animal Studies literature. Setting the emotional registers inspired by ticks against those typically adduced in framing ethical responsibilities to other creatures we might come to recognise the politics and ethics of inclusions and exclusions which shape much literature in animal studies. To make such a move is not to criticise or dismiss work within Animal Studies but to demonstrate how the animals we think with shape the theoretical, practical and political consensus we reach. The paper concludes with a move toward ‘contentment’ as a register for encountering ticks.     

Autonomic and subjective responsivity to emotional images in people with dissociative seizures

People with dissociative seizures (DS) report a range of difficulties in emotional functioning and exhibit altered responding to emotional facial expressions in experimental tasks. We extended this research by investigating subjective and autonomic reactivity (ratings of emotional valence, arousal and skin conductance responses [SCRs]) to general emotional images in 39 people with DS relative to 42 healthy control participants, whilst controlling for anxiety, depression, cognitive functioning and, where relevant, medication use. It was predicted that greater subjective negativity and arousal and increased SCRs in response to the affective pictures would be observed in the DS group. The DS group as a whole did not differ from controls in their subjective responses of valence and arousal. However, SCR amplitudes were greater in ‘autonomic responders’ with DS relative to ‘autonomic responders’ in the control group. A positive correlation was also observed between SCRs for highly arousing negative pictures and self‐reported ictal autonomic arousal, in DS ‘autonomic responders’. In the DS subgroup of autonomic ‘non‐responders’, differences in subjective responses were observed for some conditions, compared to control ‘non‐responders’. The findings indicate unaffected subjective responses to emotional images in people with DS overall. However, within the group of people with DS, there may be subgroups characterized by differences in emotional responding. One subgroup (i.e., ‘autonomic responders’) exhibit heightened autonomic responses but intact subjective emotional experience, whilst another subgroup (i.e., ‘autonomic non‐responders’) seem to experience greater subjective negativity and arousal for some emotional stimuli, despite less frequent autonomic reactions. The current results suggest that therapeutic interventions targeting awareness and regulation of physiological arousal and subjective emotional experience could be of value in some people with this disorder.     

Beyond transference,countertransference, the silences and the opinion1

The author examines several works of an intersubjectivist trend, as well as writings by Hanly, Cavell and Bion, defending many of the named psychoanalysts' viewpoints. These viewpoints are expressed in the search and the struggle for truth, recognizing, like Popper, that truth exists but that we cannot know with certainty whether and when we touch upon it, only that this endless effort merits a lifetime's work because it is the attempt at an encounter with ourselves‐the true encounter. The author explains the criticisms by Green of Jacobs, and defends the maintenance of ‘a certain possible neutrality’ (Eizirik). He poses some questions with regard to Ogden's ‘third subject’, considering it, among other aspects, from the supervisory point of view, which may demonstrate the existence of ‘a certain possible objectivity’ of the emotional confl ict. He develops some criticisms concerning silence as an interpretative action by Ogden, and summarizes two case histories. Both were unconsciously attempting to manipulate the analyst intensely‐one of them to get the analyst to intervene in his love life, and the other to interrupt acting out.     

The social unconscious in persons,groups and societies,volume 1: Mainly theory,edited by Earl Hopper and Heim Weinberg

This paper looks at some instances of young children learning in a school setting, and suggests that ‘emotional learning’ is an integral part of the apparently ‘cognitive’ learning that takes place in school. The paper uses object relations psychoanalysis in order to explore some of the more-or-less hidden emotional states of mind that accompany difficulties and successes with school learning. Three extracts are presented from observations of young children coming to terms with reading and writing. Each of these is then discussed, with the aim of showing how learning always takes place in a dynamic, relational emotional context. From the theoretical perspective outlined in this article, all learning involves unconscious ‘object relating’. Things to be learnt about, and people requiring learning, or assisting with it, are the bearers of the learner's vivid unconscious ‘transferences’. Such transferences colour the learner's emotional experience of the people and things around him or her, constituting a dynamic, internally experienced, ‘emotional context’ for learning. While this emotional context may be partly subjective, it is also more or less affected by others' feeling states, pulling the learner into a shared learning environment which is emotionally complex and inter-subjective.     

Vivid memories

Fifty-eight undergraduates each recorded their three clearest autobiographical memories and answered questions about them. The resulting 174 memories were almost all rated to be of high personal importance, but low national importance. In contrast to published results of flashbulb memories cued by events which were specific, nationally important, surprising, and consequential, the ratings collected here covered the scales of surprise and consequentiality in a fairly uniform manner. The subjects also answered questions about memories cued by 20 events. For each subject, some of these memories were of ‘flashbulb’ clarity and some were not. The clearer memories were more surprising, consequential, and emotional, indicating that these factors are associated with, though not necessary for, vivid memories.     

Are goals or preconditions better explanations? It depends on the question

Recent research on causal inference suggests that common actions tend to be attributed to goals, whereas difficult actions, if obstructed, are attributed primarily to preconditions. The present studies examine the way that the framing of causal questions influences ratings of goals and preconditions for common actions. The studies test the view that ‘why’ questions favour goal explanations, by presenting causal questions framed as ‘why’ questions or ‘explain’ questions. Structured and free-response measures were used. They show that when the question is expressed as asking why an action occurs, goals are rated better than preconditions, regardless of the presence of obstacles, whereas if the question is framed as requesting an explanation of the action, preconditions are deemed better explanations than goals for obstructed actions. Goals remain better explanations when the action is unobstructed. These findings confirm the importance of the framing of causal questions for research on causal explanation, and suggest that the phrasing of causal questions influences the focus of explanations. Copyright © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

‘Strong European emotions’: The politics of culture in the EU

In 2007 four video clips released by the European Union Media Programme achieved overnight popularity in their ability to present and capture the emotional core of being European (the clips can be seen on EUtube). The clips were designed to promote the Media Programme (2007–2013) and to encourage European citizens to identify with something that all of them have in common: ‘Love’, ‘Romanticism’, ‘Joy’ and ‘Sadness’. The clips have gained considerable interest. The video clip titled ‘Love’ has become the most watched European Union video clip ever. It shows eighteen couples having sex.In this paper I analyse the way in which such images mobilize the pleasures of fantasmic identification with the embodied agents of love and sex – images that viewers enjoy as consumers of popular culture – and how these pleasures are linked to the processes of supranational (European) identity building. In doing so, inspired by Sara Ahmed's work on the cultural politics of emotions and Ernesto Laclau's work on populism, I open a set of questions about the libidinal character or the affective dimensions of identification which images employ in order to construct identity formations. I argue that these clips are mechanisms that attempt to contribute to the construction of European supranational identity. They are part of the big network of projects established by European public policy makers that strive to produce ‘European culture’. They are designed not so much to give information about so-called ‘European emotions’ but to construct a European public. Each clip represents ambiguities which surround concepts of European culture and identity.     

Queer encounters of sexuality and class: Navigating emotional landscapes of academia

In this piece I consider processes of being (or becoming) on the academic map and the emotional disjunctures across time and place felt in occupying academia, in conducting research and in moving through intersecting spaces of teaching-research. The promise of entering and achieving in Higher Education is at once seductive (CVs produced, academic stars circulated internationally) and disturbing, felt and encountered across the university environment, via administrative, teaching and research concerns. These points of arriving, departing and travelling through institutional space intersect with what I feel about occupying academia. The emotional ‘stickiness’ of these contexts contrasts with the vision of the engaged, inclusive institution that now welcomes all through its door, with this rhetoric of arrival and belonging effacing starting points, varied journeys, different labours and divided recognitions. These are emotional matters manifest in teaching and research encounters, where a ‘critical pedagogy’ may be read as a failure, mobilised by the angry, emotional feminist academic, rather than her ‘neutral’ ‘objective’ ‘rational’ un-emotional counterpart. In arguing for an emotional presence constituted in and through teaching and research, I consider the emotional landscape of class and sexuality in particular, asking what is taken with us as we travel through academia, where feminist research in particular has been critical of the travelling subject (or ‘self’), who tells only their own story.     

Dispositional happiness and affective forecasting: General or specific effect?

Recent findings suggest that dispositional traits can influence personal affective forecasting. In this study, we investigated the relationship between dispositional happiness and affective prediction about academic performance among undergraduate students. Participants were asked to predict their emotional reactions on a 7-point Likert scale in regard to an important exam’s result two months prior obtaining their results. All the participants were contacted by SMS (Short Text Message) 8 h after the results were available and were requested to rate their actual emotional feelings on the same scale. According to their scores on the subjective happiness scale, participants were assigned into ‘happy’ and ‘unhappy’ groups. Results show no emotional prediction differences between the two groups for extreme results (i.e. good and bad results). In contrast, happy participants predicted less negative emotional feelings than unhappy ones for moderate results. No differences appear for the emotional feelings assessed the day they received their exam’s scores. These findings support the idea that dispositional happiness is related to emotional prediction and, more particularly, indicate that happiness induces more positive feelings concerning moderate future events, but not for extreme ones. This study suggests that happiness induces a positive view about emotional coping for future intermediate accomplishments only and not a positive view of the future in general.     

Self-reported emotional disturbance and its relation to electrodermal reactivity,defensiveness and trait anxiety

The discordance between an electrodermal and a subjective measure of disturbance was studied in 36 males. Electrodermal responses to emotionally loaded questions were recorded and subjects were requested to rate on visual analogue scales how disturbing they found the questions. The subjects were divided into three groups according to their ‘accuracy’ of self-perception and it was hypothesised that those who reported low subjective disturbance but reacted relatively strongly electrodermally (‘repressors’), would have a high defensiveness score but low trait anxiety. Conversely, subjects who amplify their disturbance (‘sensitisers’) were expected to have a low defensiveness score and high trait anxiety. The hypotheses were confirmed suggesting that both under and over reporting of subjective disturbance are related to defensiveness and trait anxiety. Another finding was that ‘sensitisers’ were significantly younger than ‘repressors’.     

Reclaiming failure in geography: Academic honesty in a neoliberal world

Failure is a pervasive yet rarely articulated reality of being an academic. From grant rejections to fieldwork mistakes, this editorial introduces a special issue that engages with the notion of ‘failure’ within the neoliberal university. Highlighting the uncomfortable impacts of ‘failure’ across contrasting spaces and career stages, the authors explore its politics, power, and emotional resonance, as well as raising crucial questions of resistance, hope, and refusal within geography and its allied disciplines. Three key themes emerged from these 16 papers: (i) failure is embedded in the structures of the academy; (ii) failure is an inherent part of academic knowledge production; and (iii) failure is an experience that is not equally felt, but is contingent upon uneven power relations and positionalities. We situate the special issue within the context of the coronavirus pandemic and suggest that the failure of the university sector to cope with this existential threat has exposed the very worst characteristics of market-driven education. Ultimately, this special issue aims to push back against the fear and loneliness that ‘failure’ can create, in order to confront the neoliberal university. In troubling conventional models of ‘success’ and ‘failure’ in academia, we conclude that refusing to accept the unrealistic expectations, impositions, and demands of the University-Industrial Complex is not a failure at all.     

An epistemic solution to Goodman's new riddle of induction

Goodman'snew riddle of induction can be characterized by the following questions: What is the difference between ‘grue’ and ‘green’?; Why is the hypothesis that all emeralds are grue not lawlike?; Why is this hypothesis not confirmed by its positive instances?; and, Why is the predicate ‘grue’ not projectible? I argue in favor of epistemological answers to Goodman's questions. The notions of ‘lawlikeness’, ‘confirmation’, and ‘projectibility’ have to be relativized to (actual and counterfactual) epistemic situations that are determined by the available background information. In order to defend this thesis, I discuss an example that is less strange than the grue example. From the general conclusions of this discussion, it follows that ‘grue’ is not projectible in the actual epistemic situation, but it is projectible in certain counterfactual epistemic situations.     

Distinguishing heroes from celebrities

Although numerous studies have concerned both ‘greatness’ and ‘celebrity worship,’ little previous research has overtly investigated the psychological bases for distinguishing ‘heroes’ from ‘celebrities’. Study 1 indicated that, in response to 13 attitudinal measures, participants' responses to heroes could be summarized in terms of emotional attachment, drive for affiliation, and ordinariness, whereas the corresponding factors for celebrities were drive for affiliation, disdain, and ordinariness. Study 2 investigated how certain individuals might come to be perceived as producing ‘great’ outputs. Using a vignette, manipulations of ‘dead versus alive,’ and ‘good conduct versus bad conduct’ mediated perceptions of the emotional significance of a pop song. The results are used to generate some tentative theoretical explanations for the differences between heroism and celebrity.