Things in the (Re)Production of the Emotional: Humility, Stickiness, and Emergency Contexts
Keywords:
things, material turn, humility of things, affective affordances, expansion of emotions, transitional object, power, sociomaterial dimensions, ontological safety, unworlding, affective economy, «stickiness» of things, habitus, Umwelt, sensitive objects, warAbstract
The article is devoted to the sociological analysis of the transformation of the ontological status of material objects in the minds of the war. Based on the theoretical synthesis of the «material turn», the phenomenology of M. Heideger, the theory of practices of P. Bourdieu, the actor -boundary theory and the sociology of emotions, the author of this conceptualization of the transition of speech to status «modest» background of everyday life into the status of active actors in social affairs. The phenomenon of «modesty of speech» is followed by D. Miller, which in peacetime ensures ontological security through the functioning of material culture as an invisible frame that does not require cognitive reflection. War is conceptualized as a process of «illumination» «that causes the collapse of the spiritual Umwelt, transforming «hands-on» (zuhanden) objects into «present» (vorhanden), obsessive to one’s own witchcraft or ritual significance. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of affective economies, where speeches develop the power of «stickiness» for S. Ahmed, accumulating and transmitting emotional states over time and space. It is concluded that in a situation of forced movement of speech, the function of «transitional objects» and «self- objects» is established, maintaining the integrity of biographical identity in the minds there will be a breakdown of social bonds. A methodological research framework has been proposed that integrates the theory of «broader emotions» with the analysis of sociomaterial measures, the emotional process is not delimited by the neurophysiological boundaries of the individual, but is constituted through the functional integration of the «subject – artifact» system. Empirical verification of theoretical constructs is carried out through a series of in-depth biographical interviews with local object-centered techniques. It has been revealed that material objects in the minds of war act as containers of memory, affective affordances for tactile regulation of emotions, anchors of identity and agents of magical thinking. Digital artifacts are seen as «effective mobile self- objects» that ensure minimal coherence of the «I» through permanent access to archives of people. The article introduces contributions from the developments of relational ontology, including the Cartesian dualism of subject and object.
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