Entangled Emotions and Embodied Politics in Catalonia

Departing from a research project on emotions and politics in the Catalan pro-independence movement based on qualitative research on six secessionist organisations, this proposals aims to discuss the complex set of emotions that are entangled with the pro-independence political action. In the current context, hate discourses are a common reference; however,my findings point out that hate is not the main emotion but fear; that emotions always appear in assemblages; that they are not stable but are activated in particular moments and change; and that they are affected by intersectional categories such as age and gender, and dependant on the particular activist histories of the participants. I also wish to address some methodological innovations that account for matter, discourse and affects in relation to ethnographic observation of public protest and in-depth interviews. The use of photo and audio elicitation and the concept of affective capsules are productive resources in order to grasp the emotional atmospheres of the participants in the Catalan pro-independence movement that we worked with.