Activists and Emotional Reflexivity: Toward Touraine's Subject as Social Movement

Activists are embedded in the world that they are endeavouring to change. However, to become a Subject, capable of truly creating society, Touraine argues that individuals need to be deintegrated. Achieving such deintegration involves developing skills in self-reflection. This research examines the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sociology (Oxford) 2006-10, Vol.40 (5), p.873-891
Main Author: King, Debra S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activism
Activists
Emotion
Emotion theories
Emotional development
Emotional expression
Emotions
Interpersonal relationships. Groups. Leadership
Listening
Oppression
Passion
Reflexivity
Social activism
Social change
Social impact
Social Movements
Social psychology
Social reflexivity
Sociology
Studies
Subjectivity
The Management of Emotion
Theory
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Summary:Activists are embedded in the world that they are endeavouring to change. However, to become a Subject, capable of truly creating society, Touraine argues that individuals need to be deintegrated. Achieving such deintegration involves developing skills in self-reflection. This research examines the practices of a cohort of Australian activists in developing these skills. In contrast to Touraine's normative-cognitive framework of self-reflection, these activists engaged in practices of emotional reflexivity. One of these practices was called re-evaluation counselling. It was only by reflecting through and on their emotions that they were able to identify and change the processes through which they both participated in and challenged hegemonic constructions of the world. If Subjects are to become social movement in late modernity, more attention is required on the emotional dimensions of deintegration. In moving towards this end, this research uses the concept of emotional reflexivity to build upon Touraine's theory of subjectivation.
ISSN:0038-0385
1469-8684
DOI:10.1177/0038038506067511