Towards a Sociology of Hope? Azerbaijan’s Transnational New Left and the Role of Affective Remittances

Summary The project attempts to investigate the transnational Azerbaijani left by focusing on the notion of affective remittance as a possibility how hope is emotionally produced and contested between young Azerbaijanis at home and abroad.

Abstract This project wants to explore the production (‘institutionalization’), destruction (‘de-institutionalization’), and reconfiguration (‘re-institutionalization’) of hope as an emotional practice among young and adolescent leftist and left-leaning Azerbaijanis, both within Azerbaijan and abroad. Based on virtual associations and self-reflection exercises conducted with 40 Azerbaijani participants, aged 18 to 33, via online tools, the paper investigates their conceptualizations, creation, and imaginings of hope concerning Azerbaijani society. To analyze the affective interactions between Azerbaijani leftists in Azerbaijan and abroad, the paper introduces the concept of affective remittance, an extension of political and social remittances (Krawatzek/Müller-Funk 2019). Affective remittances describe the emotional and affective transfers shared both physically and virtually between individuals. I argue that when structures of hope collapse individuals can reassert their agency through emotional practices which revolve around acts of hope (Goldman 2024). However, given the severe material constraints imposed by an authoritarian environment, I propose to argue against a utopian vision of hope, acknowledging the practical limitations subjects encounter.

References

Goldman, Loren (2024) Experimentation and the future(s) of political hope, European Journal of Social Theory, Vol. 27, Issue 2, 314-331.

Krawatzek, Félix/ Müller-Funk, Lea (2019) Two centuries of flows between ‘here’ and ‘there’: political remittances and their transformative potential, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 46, No. 6, 1003-1024.