What We Talk about When We Talk about Emotion Culture: The Role of Culture, Reflexivity and Emotions

Abstract

In this chapter I start by sketching some existing work on emotion culture, with therapeutic culture presented as a specific case. In doing so, I make two main arguments. The first is that despite bringing together the words ‘emotion’ and ‘culture’, sociological accounts of emotion culture are often curiously underengaged with the actual nature of culture and emotions or with the role of reflexivity. The second is that the claims made about such cultures, while usually sweeping, often rest on discursive shifts; and that ‘experiences’ of these shifts tend to be highly selective. Through developing these arguments, my aim is to highlight dimensions currently underconceptualized and underresearched in accounts of emotion culture. As well as the multifaceted nature of culture, reflexivities and emotions, these also include the significance of the non-narratable, the non-verbal and, relatedly, the importance of ‘doing’. As shown later in the book, the last of these, what we ‘do’, as well as how we are ‘there’ for others, matters, not just because it shifts the focus away from talk but because it describes emotional practices that are meaningful in, and of, themselves. A unifying, but again under-recognized, thread running through these dimensions is the significance of relationships.