‘—

Danielle Edwards Assignment #13

In her article “Affective Economies,” Sara Ahmed explains how our emotions ties us to different communities in society and how emotions are a cultural practice rather than a psychological disposition. For example, in the beginning of her piece she talks about the mixed race couple, the rapist and child molester, immigrants and foreigners and their relationship towards the ordinary (the white nationalist, the white farmer, the white Christian, the white working man and the white housewives). We see that in society “white” is seen as ordinary and everyone else that doesn’t fit that description are viewed as “others” and are separated into different circles. In an excerpt from the Aryan Nations she explains how the emotions of love and hate shows the boundaries between the individual subject and the nation. She explains how the white “ordinary” feels endangered by the “other’ because of their fear of losing something. So, it is suggested that their love of their nation is what prompts them to hate anyone that posed a threat. When she discusses the speech on asylum seekers given by William Hague, she explains that the repetition of “sticky words” can generate an emotional response from people. These are words that are sort of powerful and unforgettable. So using those same words will evoke a certain response for the public. She supports this by showing how the current British Home Secretary, David Blunkett, used the same “sticky words” as Hague and still brought about the same implications. Hague used words like “flood” and “swamped” to associate asylums and the loss of control and “dirt” and “sewage”, to portray the anxiety of being “overwhelmed” by potential proximity of others. Blunkett these words to describe the effect that children of asylum seekers would have if they were taught by local schools. However, he was criticized and replaced overwhelmed. Although it may seen that “overwhelmed” cleared up the implication of “swamped” it still evoked the sensation of being overtaken by “others”. Ahmed says that by doing this the nations was constructed as a subject that couldn’t cope with the presence of “others”. Therefore, the “others” are a threat to the nation as a whole (Ahmed, 122).