Making Sense and Locating Emotions in Social Sciences: A Conversation with Margrit Pernau

Abstract

Margrit Pernau is with the Center for the History of Emotions at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. She is a pioneer in the study of emotions. Among her publications are Emotions and Modernity in Colonial India: From Balance to Fervor (2019) and Ashraf into Middle Classes: Muslims in Nineteenth-Century Delhi (2013). In 2018, she co-edited Monsoon Feelings: A History of Emotions in the Rain with Imke Rajamani and Katherine Butler Schofield. On 6 March 2020, she delivered a lecture titled, ‘A History of Emotions in India: A Critical Introduction’ at the Department of Sociology, South Asian University, New Delhi. She was interviewed in New Delhi subsequent to this lecture. Kaushalya Kumarasinghe: Whenever we refer to emotions in academia, there is a risk or chance of falling into the premise of psychology or maybe moral philosophy. Since post-enlightenment disciplinary markers are still quite prominent, one should at least anticipate such consequences. Therefore, how do we understand emotions sociologically or anthropologically? Margrit Pernau: There are, of course, many different ways of approaching the study of emotions, depending on the research questions you want to ask. My own approach (laid out in an article co-written with Imke Rajamani) draws on phenomenology and the history of concepts. We take the experience of the actors as our starting point: Society and Culture in South Asia 6(2) 328–334, 2020 © 2020 South Asian University Reprints and permissions: in.sagepub.com/journalspermissions-india DOI: 10.1177/2393861720929186 journals.sagepub.com/home/scs