moving politics, gould

(3-4): not a question of dismissing other factors, but seeing how emotion 'articulates with' more frequently studied actors

(8): mourning -- > militancy

(9-10): imp-- earlier, anger had been one of many emotions. towards the end it was dominant. this will be the 'overarching argument' [begs questions, of course]

(10): political opportunities doesn't help. ACT UP developed despite (because of) lack of pol opportunities (Reagan era)

(13-14): against 'rationality' (the way it was presented). not an account of 'emotion' as irrationality, though.

(15): critique of p. process for 'evacuating emotion' from study of protest (they shared assumption, with c. behavior theorists, that 'emotions are irrational')

(15): in short--protestors are 'broadly rational', but this is not the whole story.

(17): emotion doesn't preclude rationality. irrationality doesn't preclude thought [i am getting confused. she hasn't yet defined rationality]

(18): imp--key concepts (pol opportunties, greivances) matter only insofar as 'emotional charges' are attached to them

(19, 21, 22): definitions--'affect' as nonconscious exp. of bodily energy; 'emotion' as the vague naming of that sensation. 'feeling' as both taken together.

(23): unlike Goodwin et. al., argument is that 'feelings' can diverge from reasoning selves. can't be folded into cognition [save me!]

(24): argument that 1981-1986, gay shame + some gay pride prohibited anything more confrontational than what was done. 'contradictory and unsettling' feelings.

(24): affect as always 'nonrational'--not necessarily irrational. outside of rather than contrary to decision-making.

(25): affective ontology offers three insights

1. complexity/indeterminacy of motivation/behavior
2. affect is a dimension in which social reproduction and social change takes place (attachment to leaders, etc.) using affect to explain the hold of ideology. [here we see invoking affect to explain inaction, when rationality will do just fine, and she doesn't realize it]
3. affect as itself motivating. you want to know what you feel--movements fulfill this function, often. help make sense of affective states [?!?]

(31): affect is not 'presocial'

(32-38): 'emotional habitus' [gobbledygook]

(41): main claim--emotional habitus shapes what people feel, and thus can be tremendously influential in moving people to action.

(50): question is why the movement took to the streets in May 1987 (before there were vigils, etc., and then there was direct action)? (no pol opportunities is established; devastation was ongoing for ages; grievances/strain seems inadequate?) [could it be that emotions are adequate to explain this question, but--aside from being impossible to substantiate properly--the claim is rendered unimportant because the question is so narrow?]

(52): ACT UP as a revitalization of early gay liberation politics

(55): claim -- emotional habitus generates a political horizon.

(56): between 1981-1986, movement stayed off the streets? why? [nature of emotional habitus is going to be the answer]

(58-59): importance of fear and shame in this period, at limiting people to the forms of activism they adopted

(62, 63-64, 90): argument of chapter 1--'ambivalent' feelings shaped the response. political horizon formed authorized some forms of activism, but deligitimized more confrontational activism.

(72): influence of 'lifestyle theories' on early gay response--the 'shame', she's arguing

(93-94, 97-98): some calls for stepping it up -- but didn't resonate widely, even though it got some response. her argument is that this is because the people making the call had no background int he movement, no credibility. but the response was made in a way that bolstered existing emotional habitus [she is at a stage where she can say anything she wants]

(100): of course, if emotional habitus shapes response to new proposals in a way that closes them off, the implication is that it's stuck, unchanging..

(101): Cecchi's speech. [is this empirical evidence for a movement-wide 'emotional habitus'?!?!]

(114): 1985-1986 as transitional moment

(116): new movement suggests a new emotional habitus was forming [um. if this is your reasoning, then the argument is entirely tautological: what causes the new movement? new emotional habitus. how do we know a new emotional habitus is forming? a new movement is forming.]

(118): exploding AIDS crisis was a factor--snowballing cases, gov't attempts to cut funding. but this is not sufficient, she's suggesting.

(121): outrageous Supreme Court Opinion, on homosexuality--can't cast asside millenia of moral teaching

(121, 173): imp--June 1986 ruling 'triggered' a collective response on the part of the lesbian/gay community [so, emotion here is only a vehicle ('outrage', etc.)--the real work is being done by repressive legislation, etc. in other words, if there isn't a viable counterfactual where the SC ruling doesn't result in outrage, then emotion doesn't add anything? if there is, then what explains the fact that this resulted in outrage, rather than something else?]

(131): a movement certainly--shut down W. Street for four hours, etc.

(133): imp--she rightly notes that pol. process model doesn't really work here--this was a closing of political opportunities, but it was the 'spark'. she wants to go from here to a theory of the event! [what we need, instead, is to realize that pol. opportunities isn't everything. intuitively, it doesn't seem to make sense to rule out movements that begin b/c of provocation ('threat')]

(134): Sewell on 'event' [no Hardwick ruling, no ACT UP? are you sure you want to commit to this]

(134-135): Jasper on 'moral shock' [reasonable. but this can only be a 'trigger', the underlying causes should also be part of our 'model': 'escalating grievances,' etc.]

(136): imp--'moral shock' of Hardwick --> change in emotional habitus --> direct-action movement [as noted, two problems: (1) emotions doing independent work? (2) Hardwick as only cause?]

(137): two problems--why Hardwick ruling? why reaction with direct-action? b/c of political terrain of already bad responses (pg. 139), and b/c emotional habitus was already shifting (pp. 139-140). [hmmm--this is just meddling to try and make things fit. confusing the model totally]

(144-145): did the fact that ACT-UP was predominantly white, male, middle-class help explain the turn to direct-action? in other words, did something like 'organizational resources' matter

(150): media reinforced this

(151): mainstream became militant, as well

(156): ACT-UP had 60 people at 1987 parade [so, hold on--what are we explaining, exactly?]

(163): people were still ambivalent, of course

(164): the 'emotional-imaginative' space--an attempt to show that emotions are not necessarily individual. processes structure political possibilities (but don't determine them) [yes, the don't determine is necessary because you have no idea what you're committed to, as an argument]

(169-170): the 'genocide frame' [this whole discussion of meaning-making is full of BS. no real claim. multiple processes, interpretive context, etc.--total waste of paper]

(172): against 'rationality' explanation, she's operating with an 'optimizing' conception of rationality--all you have to say,though, is that they didn't persist with a strategy that was demonstrably 'irrational'. not that they pursued the best tactics at all times.

(194): recuperating queer sexuality

(196-197): um, humour, too

(200, 207): intense, as well; 'collective effervescence'

(212, see also 255): in sum-- importance of feelings in sustaining/nourishing activism [this is intuitive, but serious problems nonetheless: (1) research design. movements that don't sustain themselves lack this factor? movements that have sustained themselves always have this factor? (2) if you tweaked everything but this factor about ACT UP, it wouldn't have succeeded [perhaps] (3) most importantly, can we not take it for granted that these practices will evolve, as a movement evolves? (4) if not, what determines whether these practices will evolve, or not? [surely we can't leave this hanging?]

(224): competing use of people's grief--into activism, rather than into passivity [but what esactly is this meant to explain? if activism was this easy, then we'd all be revolutionaries. you could stitch a story together about many an unsuccessful movement]

(234): Ashes action--how many people, though? a movement?

(253): prevailing emotional habitus discourages protest

(255): if ACT UP had not engaged in emotional work, it would not have succeeded? [implications?]

- - -

1. q. of replicability. participant more likely to concentrate on emotional aspect of movement, of course.

2. q. of difficulty of 'proving' shifts in emotional habitus, whether they're your explanans, explanandum, or whatever. much more difficult to operationalize than something like 'organizational resources'. becomes too much like political opportunities at its worst

3. how to establish a theory of social movements, when the explanandum varies so widely?

4. people 'feeling' differently might be good enough an explanation for a student group. but if we have a movement as our explanandum, feelings just can't be enough. (1) they vary randomly; (2) if they don't vary randomly, and everyone feels the same way at some time, there is something to be explained--which will invariably be structural/political in nature