[ecrea] CFP Affective Capitalism / ephemera journal

CALL FOR PAPERS

Affective Capitalism
submission deadline
31 dec 2014

http://www.ephemerajournal.org/content/affective-capitalism
Issue Editors: Tero Karppi, Anu Laukkanen, Mona Mannevuo, Mari Pajala, 
Tanja Sihvonen

This special issue aims at describing and understanding the regime of 
‘affective capitalism’. In cultural theory, affect is a useful concept 
for analysing how something stimulates our body and mind. Affect makes 
us act, exceeding or preceding rationality. In our daily lives we are 
constantly affected by a plethora of things: our work, our friends, our 
surroundings, our technologies (Gregg and Seigworth, 2010). 
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, we are seeing attempts to capture affect in 
different fields of contemporary culture, from labour to social networks 
to politics. In these contexts, affect and affection are extensively 
organized, produced and maintained for the needs of capitalism. 
Affective capitalism is lucrative, tempting and even devious. The notion 
of affect dovetails with operations of power (Kenny, Muhr and Olaison, 
2011). It merges with established therapeutic discourses and blurs the 
limits of intimacy at work (Ross, 2004; Illouz, 2007; Gregg, 2011). We 
are being induced to act in order for companies to make profits in a 
market economy. Affective capitalism transforms us into assets, goods 
and services by appealing to our desires, needs and social 
relationships, or by making us act on mere gut-feeling.

There is no single definition of affect theory; on the contrary, affect 
theory builds bridges between humanities, neurosciences, emotion studies 
and organization studies. It goes from Spinoza’s philosophy to Tomkins’ 
psychology and beyond (Sedgwick, 2003; Figlerowicz, 2012.) Similarly, 
affective capitalism operates in different areas of sense and 
experience, human and non-human alike. By mapping different areas where 
affective capitalism operates, we therefore hope to contribute to 
understanding its form and function and the relations of power it 
currently maintains.

In contemporary management theory, a fulfilling relationship towards 
vocation is usually described through affects such as love and passion. 
In feminist and cultural studies, however, there has been a growing 
interest in the question of how love and capitalism are connected 
(Illouz, 2012; Berlant, 2008; 2011). Elsewhere, Michael Hardt (2011) and 
other autonomist Marxist theorists have suggested that love nonetheless 
has the potential to overcome capitalism. It seems, then, that affect is 
a productive tool for critically discussing the contemporary ‘spirit of 
capitalism’ and its ways of merging with managerial techniques 
(Boltanski and Chiapello, 2007). The concept of affect helps us to 
examine how our intimate dreams, hopes and fears work as a fuel in the 
cycles of production.

Understanding how different forms of media and popular culture move us 
affectively is crucial for understanding how they function to produce 
economic value (Kavka, 2008; Skeggs and Wood, 2012). For example, social 
media is a part of affective capitalism to the extent that it raises 
questions about user engagement, targeted advertising, user-generated 
content and consumer profiling based on big data (Coté and Pybus, 2007; 
Gehl, 2013; Hearn, 2010a; Paasonen, 2011). But it is also important to 
find instances where affects are not subsumed within the sphere of 
exchange but may offer the potential for disrupting the dominant 
symbolic order with ‘its economic and legitimating function’ (Skeggs, 
2010: 34). Theoretical concepts such as affective labour (Hardt, 1999), 
free labour (Terranova, 2000) and immaterial labour (Lazzarato, 1996) 
have been used for making sense of work in the cultural industries, 
including the work performed by users and audiences. At the same time, 
the usefulness of these concepts has been questioned and their 
application has been criticized for a lack of proper empirical 
engagement with the specificity of cultural production (Dowling, 2007; 
Gill and Pratt, 2008; Hesmondhalgh and Baker, 2008; Hearn, 2010b; 
McRobbie, 2011).

These fields above are only a few examples where affective capitalism 
plays a particular role. In each of them affective capitalism has its 
own ambivalences and complexities. By analysing how affective capitalism 
appears in different contexts and frameworks, we are seeking new ways to 
understand and conceptually grasp it. At the same time, we ask how we 
could resist it and develop alternatives to it. We therefore welcome 
studies that explore affective capitalism in various forms and contexts. 
We invite contributions that critically engage with related concepts 
such as immaterial, affective and emotional labour, grounding their 
usage in specific contexts and empirical case studies. Possible topics 
include, but are not limited to the following:

    * The affective dimensions of value creation, cultural production 
and resistance
    * Affective capitalism, actor-networks, and human and non-human 
agencies
    * The limits of the immaterial/affective labour theory (e.g. 
feminist critique)
    * Performance measurement and affect in contemporary management theory
    * Therapy culture, capitalism and organizations (e.g. human 
resource management)
    * Commodification of social media users and networked relations
    * Connections between affective capitalism and sharing economy
    * Selfies, peer-2-peer financing systems, digital currencies, 
self-quantifications and other technological mediations of affective 
capitalism
    * Ways of harnessing the experiential and affective qualities of 
the arts (e.g. music, dance, visual arts) to enhance the productivity of 
employees or marketing
    * Forms of resistance and micropolitics in the networks of artists, 
activists and researchers
    * Branding the global university: affect, knowledge and capitalism


Deadline for submissions: 31 December 2014

All contributions should be submitted to the special issue editors at: 
affcap AT utu.fi. Please note that three categories of contributions are 
invited for the special issue: articles, notes and reviews. Information 
about these types of contributions can be found at 
http://www.ephemerajournal.org/call-for-papers. All submissions should 
follow ephemera’s submission guidelines which are available at: 
http://www.ephemerajournal.org/how-submit. Articles will undergo a 
double blind review process. For further information please email: 
affcap AT utu.fi.

References

Berlant, L. (2011) ‘A properly political concept of love: Three 
approaches in ten pages’, Cultural Anthropology, 26(4): 683-691.

Berlant, L. (2008) The female complaint. Durham: Duke University Press.

Boltanski, L. and E. Chiapello (2007) The new spirit of capitalism. 
London: Verso.

Coté, M. and J. Pybus (2007) ‘Learning to immaterial labour 2.0: MySpace 
and social networks’, ephemera, 7(1): 88-106.

Dowling, E. (2007) ‘Producing the dining experience: Measure, 
subjectivity and the affective worker’, ephemera, 7(1): 117-132.

Figlerowicz, M. (2012) ‘Affect theory dossier an introduction’, Qui 
Parle: Critical Humanities and Social Sciences, 20(2): 3-18.

Gehl, R. (2013) ‘What’s on your mind? Social media monopolies and 
noopower’, First Monday, 18(3-4) 
[http://firstmonday.org/article/view/4618/3421].

Gill, R. and A. Pratt (2008) ‘In the social factory? Immaterial labour, 
precariousness and cultural work’, Theory, Culture & Society, 25(7-8): 1-30.

Gregg, M. (2011) Work’s intimacy. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Gregg, M. and G.J. Seigworth (2010) ‘An Inventory of shimmers’, in M. 
Gregg and GJ. Seigworth (eds.) The affect theory reader. Durham: Duke 
University Press.

Hearn, A. (2010a) ‘Structuring feeling: Web 2.0, online ranking and 
rating, and the digital “reputation” economy’, ephemera, 10(3/4): 421-438.

Hearn, A. (2010b) ‘Reality television, The Hills, and the limits of the 
immaterial labour thesis’, Triple, 8(1), 60-76.

Hesmondhalgh, D. and S. Baker (2008) ’Creative work and emotional labour 
in the television industry’, Theory, Culture & Society, 25(7-8): 97-118.

Hardt, M. (1999) ‘Affective labor’, Boundary 2, 26(2): 89-100.

Hardt, M. (2011) ‘For love or money’, Cultural Anthropology, 26(4): 676-682.

Illouz, E. (2012) Why love hurts: A sociological explanation. Cambridge: 
Polity Press.

Illouz, E. (2007) Cold intimacies: The making of emotional capitalism. 
Cambridge: Polity Press.

Kavka, M. (2008) Reality television, affect and intimacy: Reality 
matters. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kenny, K., S.-L. Muhr and L. Olaison (2011) ‘The effect of affect: 
Desire and politics in modern organizations’, ephemera, 11(3): 235-242.

Lazzarato, M. (1996) ‘Immaterial labor’, in P. Virno and M. Hardt (eds.) 
Radical thought in Italy: A potential politics. Minneapolis: University 
of Minnesota Press.

McRobbie A. (2011) ‘Reflections on feminism, immaterial labour and the 
post-fordist regime’, New Formations, 70: 60-76.

Paasonen, S. (2011) Carnal Resonance: Affect and online pornography. 
Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press.

Ross, A. (2004) No collar: The humane workplace and its hidden costs. 
Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Sedgwick, E.K. (2003) Touching feeling: Affect, pedagogy, 
performativity. Durham: Duke University Press.

Skeggs, B. (2010) ‘The value of relationships: Affective scenes and 
emotional performances’, Feminist Legal Studies, 18(1): 29-51.

Skeggs, B. and H. Wood (2012) Reacting to reality television: 
Performance, audience and value. London: Routledge.

Terranova, T. (2000) ‘Free labor: Producing culture for the digital 
economy’, Social Text, 63, 18(2): 33-57.

Keywords affect capitalism value labor network branding resistance
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