1st Edition
Protest and the Ambiguous Politics of Indignation An Empirical and Conceptual Study of Mobilizing Emotions
Introduction. 1. The politicality of indignation: edges and ambiguities 2. What indignation looks like and how to study its politicality 3. Indignation as transformation: power, escape and agency 4. Indignation on behalf of others: dignity, representation and democracy 5. Indignation in the Anthropocene: denial, anxiety and planetary bodies 6. Media-indignation: weaponization, righteousness and subalterneity 7. Indignation, betrayal and conflict Methods Appendix
Biography
Louise Knops is Assistant Professor in Environmental Humanities at the University of Brussels (Université libre de Bruxelles, ULB). She is also lecturer at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).
“In this acutely observed and authoritative account of social movement activism in Belgium, Louise Knops provides a nuanced and detailed reading of the politics of indignation. Indignation, she argues, is a slippery emotion: capable both of enabling mobilisation and opening up possibilities of systemic challenge; and of foreclosing it, serving to dissolve critique within the immediacy of conflict. A distinctive, original and much needed advance in the political sociology of emotions, Knops’s analysis develops a wider resonance: understanding the emotional terrain on which dynamics of depoliticization operate can enable the repoliticization of the public sphere.” - Graeme Hayes, Aston University, UK, former Editor of Environmental Politics and Social Movement Studies
“This original work brings a real contribution to our understanding of affects and their political potential as well as, more specifically, the cycle of indignation which turns those affects, however diverse in shape and fierceness, into a vehicle of contest and struggle. Furthermore, it is thorough, well written and offers good insights into the Spinoza-inspired affect theories.” - Benedikte Zitouni, UCLouvain Saint-Louis Brussels, Belgium
