5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

Social movement studies had mostly ignored the role of emotions despite them being an important component of collective action. However, over the last 25 years, scholars have turned their attention to emotions such as fear, anger, shame, pride, love, and hate to understand how emotions create or transform social movements, and how social movements utilise emotions in their mobilisation and communication with the audience, allies, and rivals. The usage of emotions by far-right movements is particularly noteworthy.

Empirical studies have shown that far-right movements successfully use emotions, particularly fear, anger, shame, and pride, to garner public support and mobilise constituents. Given this growing body of research, we invite abstracts focusing on the role of emotions in social movements, including aspects such as mobilisation, collective action, resistance, and more. We are particularly interested in how different emotions influence the dynamics of social movements and their ability to effect change.