National Affects

About this book

"Identity is widely acknowledged to be a felt experience, yet questions of experience, mood and public sentiments are rarely made central to understanding the global politics of nationalism, citizenship and forms of being together in public. This book asks: what difference does it make to address national identity as an affective force? In a timely intervention, the book addresses the affective and atmospheric dimensions of being together to open new angles in the study of nationalism and global politics. Exploring sites that range from the 2012 London Olympic Games to the European refugee crisis and 'Brexit', asking how the nation is felt in everyday life and differently experienced, Atmospheric Politics moves between theory and narrative to establish a new tone of critical enquiry. Whist informed by critical interrogations of the geographies of "us" and "them", the book argues that these ideas are not as stable as they are made to seem. Drawing on artistic interventions including performance and novels, the book offers a refreshing approach to conceptualising the politics of nationalism, identity and citizenship, and identifies new registers for intervening politically. Overall, Atmospheric Politics outlines other ways of imagining and practising being political together, beyond the exclusionary politics of nationalism"--