Key research themes
1. How does affect shape and sustain capitalist economic structures and practices?
This research theme investigates the integration of affect and emotion within capitalist systems, emphasizing how capitalism harnesses and capitalizes on affective capacities beyond traditional notions of rational economic behavior. Affect is recognized not merely as individual emotion but as a socio-political-economic force that contributes to legitimizing capitalist institutions, driving consumer behavior, and structuring economic relations through affective infrastructures.
2. How are affective-discursive practices instrumentalized in neoliberal capitalism and digital economies?
Focused on the combined power of affect and discourse, this theme examines how affective expressions, such as emotions, language styles, and communicative practices, are scripted and strategically employed within neoliberal capitalist enterprises and digital platforms to produce authenticity, manage identities, and enhance market distinction. It situates affective-discursive practices as central components of service economies, branding, and digital self-presentation, highlighting the political economy and sociolinguistic processes that underwrite their commodification.
3. How do social embeddedness and collective affective phenomena reconfigure individual and collective subjectivities within capitalist contexts?
This theme interrogates the social dimensions of affect by exploring collective emotions, emotional capital, and affective nationalism, all of which reveal affect as constitutive of social bonds, identities, and agency within capitalist and political contexts. The research emphasizes the importance of situating affect within relational, embodied, and power-laden social milieus to understand how emotions are embedded in institutional, national, and organizational processes that both reproduce and challenge capitalist modalities.