86 – Frictious Feelings: Emotions in Moments of Crisis and Failure
The study of emotions in the context of South Asia has been established as a significant line of enquiry in exploring precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial contexts (Bilimoria and Wenta; Heim, Chakravarthi and Tzohar; Pernau; Schröer; Tignol). Highlighting the increasing significance of emotions as a methodological approach, this panel focuses on moments of conflict, crisis, or failure.
The recent and rich body of scholarship has shown the importance and productivity of studying human and nonhuman feelings across disciplines including history, anthropology, literature, or (human) geography. Key concepts such as emotional regimes (Reddy), styles (Gammerl), communities (Rosenwein), or practices (Scheer) have been coined and adopted to describe how emotions and affects “work”. But what about times when they don’t work, when things don’t go smoothly or as intended? This panel argues that such moments of friction and failure, crisis and conflict, reveal much about underlying social, political, and cultural structures and their mechanics. Furthermore, such crises can also expose the structures of inter/intrapersonal relations and relations between humans and nonhuman subjectivities.
We invite contributions focusing on moments of friction and failure in understanding and responding to emotions. What does it mean to fail at feelings? What feelings shape experiences of crises? What can friction in feeling tell us about emotions and societies? Bringing together scholars working in and on South Asia across (humanities) disciplines, the panel seeks to create a space – including individual presentations and a round-table discussion – to discuss fresh perspectives in the study of emotion and to emotions as method. It aims to re-examine existing domains of enquiry through the lens of feelings, explicitly drawing on the abundance of vernacular emotion concepts and affective knowledges beyond persisting Eurocentric accounts and approaches.
