Emotional States : Sites and Spaces of Affective Governance

What is the political allure, value and currency of emotions within contemporary cultures of governance? What does it mean to govern more humanely? Since the emergence of an emotional turn in human geography over the last decade, the notion that our emotions matter in understanding an array of social practices, spatial formations and aspects of everyday life is no longer seen as controversial. This book brings recent developments in emotional geography into dialogue with social policy concerns and contemporary issues of governance. It sets the intellectual scene for research into the geographical dimensions of the emotionalized states of the citizen, policy maker and public service worker, and highlights new research on the emotional forms of governance which now characterise public life. An international range of empirical field studies are used to examine issues of regulation, modification, governance and potential manipulation of emotional affects, professional and personal identities and political technologies. Contributors provide analysis of the role of emotional entanglements in policy strategy, policy implementation, service delivery, citizenship and participation as well as considering the emotional nature of the research process itself. It will be of interest to researchers and students within social policy, human geography, politics and related disciplines. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Table of Contents 6 Notes on contributors 10 Acknowledgements 16 1 Introduction: governing with feeling 18 Part I Approaching emotional governance: feminism and gendered labour 36 2 Rationality, responsibility and rage: the contested politics of emotion governance 38 3 Reframing co-production: gender, relational academic labour and the university 53 Part II Emotions in public policy-making 70 4 Choice architecture as new governance: the case of the Dutch housing market 72 5 Governing mindfully: shaping policy makers’ emotional engagements with behaviour change 86 6 The sentimental civil servant 102 Part III Emotions in public services 116 7 Behaviourally, emotionally and socially ‘problematic’ students: interrogating emotional governance as a form of exclusionary practice in schools 118 8 ‘Supporting People’: regulation, welfare practice and emotions 133 9 Fearful asymmetry: circuits of paranoia in governing through school inspection 146 10 Troubling feelings in family policy and interventions 161 Part IV Emotions of citizenship and participation 176 11 The role of multicultural fantasies in the enactment of the state: the English National Health Service (NHS) as an affective formation 178 12 Whose feelings count? Performance politics, emotion and government immigration control 194 13 Governing through civic pride: pride and policy in local government 208 14 An affective journey to active citizenship 221 15 The relational spaces of mentoring with young people ‘at risk’ 234 Afterword: looking beyond our emotional present 249 Index 259 Sites and spaces of affective governance What is the political allure, value and currency of emotions within contemporary cultures of governanceWhat does it mean to govern more humanelySince the emergence of an emotional turn in human geography over the last decade, the notion that our emotions matter in understanding an array of social practices, spatial formations and aspects of everyday life is no longer seen as controversial. This book brings recent developments in emotional geography into dialogue with social policy concerns and contemporary issues of governance. It sets the intellectual scene for research into the geographical dimensions of the emotionalized states of the citizen, policy maker and public service worker, and highlights new research on the emotional forms of governance which now characterise public life. An international range of empirical field studies are used to examine issues of regulation, modification, governance and potential manipulation of emotional affects, professional and personal identities and political technologies. Contributors provide analysis of the role of emotional entanglements in policy strategy, policy implementation, service delivery, citizenship and participation as well as considering the emotional nature of the research process itself. It will be of interest to researchers and students within social policy, human geography, politics and related disciplines. -- From publisher's website