Theorising Affective Habitus in Historical Geographies of Mobilities: Unfolding Spatio-Temporal Modalities

Abstract

This essay applies a case study approach to theorise a research agenda for critical explorations of emotions and mobilities centred on three core concepts and key phenomena: affective habitus, spatio-temporal modalities and historical geographies. The analysis offers novel perspectives on the interplay between the affectivity of geographies of social difference and the multiscalar dynamics shaping social relations through mobility. This is demonstrated in how emotions linked to agency provide a generative lens to explore how social relationships and political subjectivities intersect to inform mobile identities/lifeworlds. The case studies offer critical insights of how migrants/refugees/indigenous people in navigating challenging structural conditions can reflect conceptualisations of the mutually constitutive contexts of emotionality and intersectional inequity with indigeneity and (im)mobility. A temporal-historical lens reveals how emotional mobilities are shaped by structural/social dynamics including, but not limited to, trauma and exclusion, historical divisions, cultural identities, border and racialised regimes, intergenerationality. These exemplifications through a case study empirical lens draw from research focusing on indigenous and Palestinian peoples.