Affective Labor and Feminist Politics
Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: This article discusses the political potential of Michael Hardt’s and Antonio Negri’s influential notion of affective labor for feminist theory and politics. The argument proceeds in two stages. I begin by briefly explicating Hardt’s and Negri’s concept of affective labor and outline what I see as its potential benefits for advancing critical feminist thought and political imagination. In the second part of the article I turn to a critical evaluation of the notion in connection with feminist politics. While I acknowledge the strengths of this concept in characterizing contemporary laboring practices, I nonetheless want to expose its shortcomings in advancing feminist politics. I contend that in order to imagine effective political responses to the problems currently facing us, feminist politics needs theoretical distinctions within the category of affective labor that allow us to advance a political and ethical problematization of our current forms of work.
Source: Signs
DOI: 10.1086/682920
Author: Johanna Oksala
Institution: University of Helsinki
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Gender equality
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2225660632