Mary Holmes

The Emotionalization of Reflexivity

Reflexivity refers to the practices of altering one’s life as a response to knowledge about one’s circumstances. While theories of reflexivity have not entirely ignored emotions, attention to them has been insufficient. These theories need emotionalizing and this article proposes that emotions have become central to a subjectivity and sociality that is relationally constructed. The emotionalization of reflexivity not only refers to a theoretical endeavour but is a phrase used to begin to explore whether individuals are increasingly drawing on emotions in assessing themselves and their lives. It is argued that dislocation from tradition produces a reflexivity that can be very dependent on comparing experiences and can move others to reflect and reorder their own relations to self and others. Thus, emotions are crucial to how the social is reproduced and to enduring within a complex social world.

Men’s emotions: Heteromasculinity, emotional reflexivity, and intimate relationships

This article focuses on the underresearched topic of how masculinity relates to emotional forms of caring within heterosexual relationships. Both scholarly and common sense thinking, often present heterosexual male partners as unable and/or unwilling to do emotion work, leaving women burdened with this task. However, contemporary relational complexity increasingly requires emotional reflexivity. Such reflexivity entails interpretations of one’s own and others’ emotions, and acting in light of those interpretations. The question here is to what extent and how that emotional reflexivity might effect a reshaping of heteromasculinity toward more caring forms of emotionality? Drawing on interviews with heterosexual couples in distance relationships, it is argued that emotional reflexivity may produce a variety of ways of relationally gendering emotions. Those who seem to adhere to ideas of men as emotionally restricted may claim tactile forms of emotional expression. However, there may be limitations to these forms in certain circumstances, and this may prompt a reflexive reorientation of heteromasculine emotionalities toward more verbal forms of support. The point of seeking to illustrate that masculinity and emotionality are open to such reflexive shifts is to debunk essentialist views of gendered emotionality which undermine efforts to achieve greater gender equality in intimate life.

Researching Emotional Reflexivity

The everyday novelties of contemporary society require emotional reflexivity (Holmes, 2010a), but how can it be researched? Joint interviews can give more insight into the relational and embodied nature of emotional reflexivity than analysis of text-based online sources. Although textual analysis of online sources might be useful for seeing how people relationally negotiate what to feel when feeling rules are unclear, interviews allow observation of emotional reflexivity as done in interaction, especially if there is more than one interviewee. This highlights not only the relational, but the embodied aspects of emotional reflexivity, and shows how it is a useful concept for researching aspects of emotionality not well addressed by other concepts such as “emotional intelligence” and “emotion work.”

‘He's snooty ‘im’: exploring ‘white working class’ political disengagement

Using a small pilot qualitative study conducted in the North of England prior to the 2010 general election, we seek to understand why our respondents might feel actively disengaged from mainstream politics. It is argued that one major reason is because politicians are seen as lacking understanding of the local contexts in which these low-wage workers live. The gulf between represented and representative is widened if politicians fail to communicate in a ‘down to earth’ way. This indicates that social inequality between represented and representative is a factor in disengagement, but that such disengagement is not the result of apathy on the part of citizens. Further research is required, but our study suggests that if politicians fail to recognise their privilege and politics fails to address economic disadvantage across ethnic groups then disengagement from mainstream politics is likely to worsen.

Heterodoxy: Challenging orthodoxies about heterosexuality

The intention of this article is to challenge orthodoxies regarding heterosexuality, which have tended to constitute it as a static monolith and queer as the only potential site for a less oppressive sexuality. By contrast, we consider heterodox possibilities for pleasure and change within the realm of the dominant. We examine three examples – divergence, transgression and subversion – and then consider some terminologies that might flesh out experiential aspects of these examples of social change in heterosexuality. This conjunction offers a means to acknowledge heterosexuality’s coercive aspects while attending to its more egalitarian, less orthodox forms.

GUEST EDITORIAL: Heterosexuality

Heterosexuality has the potential to be pleasurable, comfortable, and even exciting or transgressive. Yet these aspects are seldom addressed in contemporary academic work. In contrast, there is a great deal of work about pornography, sex trafficking, sexual violence and other negative aspects of heterosexuality. These are very important issues, but they have received considerable attention, from classic works like Brownmiller’s Against Our Will (1975) to recent publications, such as Sex, Violence and the Body (Hearn and Burr 2009). There have been efforts to add to these crucial accounts of the dangers of heterosexuality by providing analyses of pleasure (such as Vance 1984; Loe 2004), but these have been rather limited in comparison. Even studies on women’s orgasms have rather dourly concluded that, if achieved, it is through men’s technical skill and/or women’s emotion work (sometimes involving faking it) (Duncombe and Marsden 1996; Jackson and Scott 1997, 2001; Roberts et al. 1995). More recent work has allowed for some sense of pleasure or play (for instance, Jackson and Scott 2007) but the outcome of the ‘sex wars’ appears to have left the ‘sex-critical’/‘sex-as-danger’ approach in place as the prevailing perspective with regard to heterosexuality. Even the emergence of ‘pro-sex’ views has not altered this situation substantially, given that these views largely assume that exciting, pleasurable and transgressive sex is the preserve of non-heterosexuals. In addition, there appears to be a troubling gap between the cacophony of popular commercial voices proclaiming the joys of (hetero)sexuality and the comparatively silent and largely negative critical voices to be found in Gender/Sexuality Studies. There is a need for broader and more nuanced understandings of heterosexuality. The central aim of this special issue is to add to understanding of heterosexuality by more fully exploring the possibility that it is not monolithic, not always oppressive and can provide pleasure. This needs to be done with some care in order to avoid reinscribing heteronormativity or reinstating fixed sexuality/gender categories. The articles contained here show the way, providing both theoretical and empirical insights into the diversity and more positive potential of heterosexuality. The intention is to go beyond the limits of existing critical analyses of heterosexuality, especially those that remain mired within the binary oppositions of the sex wars. Such binary analyses fail to appreciate the variety of heterosexual practice and its transgressive possibilities. Moreover, in order to provide a fuller picture of heterosexuality, there is a concern to engage with theories about the intersection of sexuality with other markers of difference such as class, age and ethnicity. Heterosexuality is not homogeneous and involves a variable set of practices. It is not inevitably an exercise in oppressive villainy. Heterosex may often be routine, though none the less significant for that. The point here is to focus upon its complex possibilities rather than presuming in advance that it is inexorably normative, uninteresting, unpleasant and irredeemable. Indeed, this issue offers a counter to dominant negative conceptions of heterosexuality within Gender/Sexuality scholarship. These conceptions are ironically

Political Emotions: A Role for Feelings of Affinity in Citizens’ (Dis)Engagements with Electoral Politics?

This article develops the concept of affinity as one means available in understanding how citizens make, or fail to make, connections with politics and politicians. It is argued that the disappearance of class from much political discourse has led to more emotional ways of relating to politics. We claim that the reflexivity involved in political deliberation must take account of people’s emotional responses to the political. We argue that one key element in these emotional responses is a feeling, or lack of feeling, of affinity. We propose that citizens often use feelings of likeness in their (dis)engagement with politicians, policies and parties. Understanding the emotional aspects of political (dis)engagement in this way is crucial in dealing with concerns about widespread disengagement from, and dissatisfaction with, electoral politics.

Friendship and Happiness from a Sociological Perspective

Sociological approaches to friendship and happiness focus on how broader social and cultural conditions influence friendship and happiness. Long-standing debates about the ‘good life’ on which sociological theory draws, include some attention to friendship as an important intimate relationship in promoting well-being. Sociologists note that friends confer social and emotional capital that has the potential to enhance happiness, offering opportunities to network, as well as emotional support, information, trust, financial support, and influence. Sociological perspectives examine the changing historical definitions of happiness and friendship and critically evaluate whether friendship and happiness contribute to individual subjective well-being or are used in social control. Sociological attention to friendship and happiness also debates their contribution to social cohesion versus the ways in which they may exacerbate social inequalities. What a sociological contribution to happiness and friendship can offer is further illustrated using two examples of friendship and happiness in different social spheres; one taken from a study of friendships at work and the other from research into how friendships are navigated through online social media like Facebook.

Relational happiness through recognition and redistribution: Emotion and inequality

This article develops a model of relational happiness that challenges popular individualized definitions and emphasizes how it can enhance the sociological analysis of inequality. Many studies of happiness suggest that social inequalities are closely associated with distributions of happiness at the national level, but happiness research continues to favour individual-level analyses. Limited attention has been given to the intersubjective aspects of happiness and the correlations between it and higher social equality. Conversely, key theoretical debates about inequalities, such as Axel Honneth and Nancy Fraser’s exchanges, have only indirectly touched on happiness. A relational approach to happiness is not new, but what this article offers is a new combination of a relational understanding of happiness as an intersubjectively, culturally experienced complex of emotions with discussions about recognition of marginalized groups and redistribution of material resources. This combined approach can further debates about understanding and remedying social inequalities. It argues that theories and measurements of happiness must consider how it can be achieved collectively through working at mutual respect as well as greater material equality.

Relationality and Normativity: How Relationships Are Made in Interaction

Relating differently can be good, and this chapter is about how couples in distance relationships find pleasure and please others as they make and continue to remake their relationship. Sometimes this involves doing things differently, as in the marriage described by this commuter wife in in Gerstel and Gross’s (1984) study: People say: ‘How can you do it?’ and I say: ‘I feel great about it.’ There are heavy costs family wise. But that’s only half the picture. I have a far easier time of it than Richard. It’s much harder to be at home with all the family responsibilities. (p. 130)