Mobilising Affect for Public Art: Affective practices in voluntary organising

Area of Science:

• Organizational Studies
• Practice Theory
• Affect Theory

Background:

• Voluntary organizing often uses emotional intensity but lacks understanding of its cultivation.
• Engaging and coordinating diverse actors in long-term organizing remains a challenge.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and theorize 'affective practices' for mobilizing emotions in voluntary organizing.
• To understand how affect shapes actions and relationships toward organizational goals.

Main Methods:

• Applied a practice approach to affect.
• Analyzed ethnographic data from a long-term public art project.

Main Results:

• Identified four pivotal affective practices: enticing, envisioning, attending, and asserting.
• These practices mobilize fascination, enthusiasm, care, and discomfort, fostering participation and compliance.
• Affective processes are cultivated as situated accomplishments, with matter playing a key role.

Conclusions:

• Affective practices are crucial for sustaining voluntary organizing by engaging diverse individuals and groups.
• The study contributes to the affective turn in practice theory, emphasizing the role of material presence in emotional cultivation.
• Interplay of affective intensities fosters coalitional moments, aligning diverse actors in organizational processes.