The Cultural Politics of Emotion

Ahmed employs the word “sensation” to refer to the embodied physical perceptions more often referred to as “affect.” Emotion involves the cognitive interpretation of these physical states. Ahmed views affect as distinct from emotion only in the abstract, as she does not believe there is a practical way to separate the two in real life.

An “affective economy” is the circulation of emotions among people and signs. The idea of the affective economy draws from Marxist thinking about economies more broadly and applies this thinking to emotions as a medium of exchange. Ahmed suggests that, at minimum, hate and fear circulate in economies of this kind. This concept supports her depiction of Emotions as Social and Relational Practices.

According to Ahmed, emotions are performative relational practices that shape identity through repeated impressions on bodily surfaces. Although Ahmed is mainly interested in this complex definition of emotion through its action, she does offer a more succinct working definition in Chapter 8. For the purposes of her arguments regarding the artificial distinction between thought and emotion: Emotion is “embodied thought” (Location 3948 of 6419).