W h a t i s A f f e c t ?
Affect
has become an area of interest in the social sciences in the last
decade. As a broad philosophical concept, it can be understood in a
variety of ways and is often said to exist between,
through, in and around human and non-human worlds.
Authors often refer to affectivity as 'fields of intensity' that can be
produced and experienced not only by humans, but by different forms of
'agency' such as animals and computers, or even movement, thought, and
space. Feeling is at the
heart of affect, but is understood not simply as the human experience
of mind and body, rather as a more inclusive realm of worldly
experience, beyond the bounds of the person.
Affect has strong
theoretical foundations and links to abstract philosophy, but that is
not to say it is confined to the world of the pensive academic. Rather,
affect exists everywhere, in everyone and in everything. Movement, communication,
love, technological processes, mechanics, the weather, speech, emotion,
memory and ethics are all consituted by particular configurations of
affectivity that are at once pervasive and ethereal. Affect owes much
to phenomenology and the notion of
'being-in-the-world', and the concept of emergence is central to affective interpretetations of
geographical, social and political phenomena.
The implications of affect
for
academic and journalistic writing are extensive, and can inform
research aims, methodologies, intentions and the idea of success and
progress within scholarship. Affect has strong links with
'non-representational theory' and challenges the objectivity of
particular forms of representations, instead emphasising their role
as artefacts of the research process itself. Acknowledging the limits
of representation and the pervasiveness of affect in and around
research, this journal
welcomes and encourages different forms of 'writing' that move beyond
the restrictions of words and systems of grammar, including visual art,
animation and digital choreography.
As
well as a realm of
philosophy and a powerful concept for social scientific discourse,
affect also has a more commonly known usage, as in 'to have an
effect upon'. This journal seeks to establish an ethos of
non-traditional geographical
and political thinking with an emphasis on radical and alternative
arguments whilst retaining a broad sense of inclusiveness
that welcomes diversity and creativity from across the social sciences.