Jamie Bianco

Bio: Jamie Bianco is an academic researcher from New York University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Digital media & Queer. The author has an hindex of 3, co-authored 8 publications receiving 1301 citations.

The affective turn : theorizing the social

Abstract: “The innovative essays in this volume demonstrat[e] the potential of the perspective of the affects in a wide range of fields and with a variety of methodological approaches Some of the essays use fieldwork to investigate the functions of affects—among organized sex workers, health care workers, and in the modeling industry Others employ the discourses of microbiology, thermodynamics, information sciences, and cinema studies to rethink the body and the affects in terms of technology Still others explore the affects of trauma in the context of immigration and war And throughout all the essays run serious theoretical reflections on the powers of the affects and the political possibilities they pose for research and practice”—Michael Hardt, from the foreword In the mid-1990s, scholars turned their attention toward the ways that ongoing political, economic, and cultural transformations were changing the realm of the social, specifically that aspect of it described by the notion of affect: pre-individual bodily forces, linked to autonomic responses, which augment or diminish a body’s capacity to act or engage with others This “affective turn” and the new configurations of bodies, technology, and matter that it reveals, is the subject of this collection of essays Scholars based in sociology, cultural studies, science studies, and women’s studies illuminate the movement in thought from a psychoanalytically informed criticism of subject identity, representation, and trauma to an engagement with information and affect; from a privileging of the organic body to an exploration of nonorganic life; and from the presumption of equilibrium-seeking closed systems to an engagement with the complexity of open systems under far-from-equilibrium conditions Taken together, these essays suggest that attending to the affective turn is necessary to theorizing the social Contributors Jamie “Skye” Bianco, Grace M Cho, Patricia Ticineto Clough, Melissa Ditmore, Ariel Ducey, Deborah Gambs, Karen Wendy Gilbert, Greg Goldberg, Jean Halley, Hosu Kim, David Staples, Craig Willse , Elizabeth Wissinger , Jonathan R Wynn

Social Networking and Cloud Computing: Precarious Affordances for the "Prosumer"

Abstract: drive. Arguably, the World Wide Web has always functioned in this manner, though the "easy-to-use" qualifier might not apply. In the early days of the Web, a producer needed basic coding or mark-up literacies, such as knowl edge of HTML, to build a website. While some websites offered minimal engagement to the user, for the most part, they were static, read-only, and unidirectional nodes of information.1 In recent years, use of web-based plat forms that engage fuller participation, that rely on "scaling" a large user-base of "prosumers" (producer/consumers), and that solicit user-generated con tent has proliferated, ushering in social networking and "cloud computing" as a part of everyday digital life.2 "Social networking" as a descriptor marks a huge range of personal ized cloud computing platforms and functions of interaction on the web. "Cloud computing" refers to the use of a network-based application that also handles user data storage. In other words, both the program and any documents, files, or data generated through this program all reside on the host's remote networked server and not on a user's own hard drive. Hugely popular instances of this sort of social networking and cloud computing are carried out on such sites as MySpace, Facebook, Flickr,YouTube, Twit ter, and Delicious.3 All of these platforms offer a variety of user controls that allow for the creation of personal networks, such as "adding a friend," "subscribing" to a channel or feed, and "following" other users as well as options to subscribe to an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) "feed" directed at a "reader."4 They also offer subplatforms, for activities such as blogging on a MySpace page, messaging users directly through the web interface or via cell phone-enabled SMS (Simple Message System) text messages, and incor porating various digital objects such as digital video and photos into a Tweet

Affective spaces, melancholic objects: ruination and the production of anthropological knowledge*

Abstract: This article critically engages with recent theoretical writings on affect and non-human agency by way of studying the emotive energies discharged by properties and objects appropriated during war from members of the so-called ‘enemy’ community. The ethnographic material comes from long-term fieldwork in Northern Cyprus, focusing on how it feels to live with the objects and within the ruins left behind by the other, now displaced, community. I study Turkish-Cypriots’ relations to houses, land, and objects that they appropriated from the Greek-Cypriots during the war of 1974 and the subsequent partition of Cyprus. My ethnographic material leads me to reflect critically on the object-centred philosophy of Actor Network Theory and on the affective turn in the human sciences after the work of Gilles Deleuze. With the metaphor of ‘ruination’, I study what goes amiss in scholarly declarations of theoretical turns or shifts. Instead, proposing an anthropologically engaged theory of affect through an ethnographic reflection on spatial and material melancholia, I argue that ethnography, in its most productive moments, is trans-paradigmatic. Retaining what has been ruined as still needful of consideration, I suggest an approach which merges theories of affect and subjectivity as well as of language and materiality. Resume L'article examine sous un angle critique les ecrits theoriques recents sur l'affect et l'agency non humaine pour etudier les energies emotives liberees par les biens et objets confisques lors d'un conflit arme aux membres de la communaute dite «ennemie». Le materiel ethnographique provient d'un travail de terrain de longue duree dans le Nord de Chypre, qui portait sur le ressenti de ceux qui vivent avec ces objets, dans les ruines laissees par l'autre communaute desormais deplacee. L'auteure etudie les relations des Chypriotes turcs avec les maisons, les terres et les objets qu'ils se sont appropries sur les Chypriotes grecs lors de la guerre de 1974 et de la partition de Chypre. Le materiel ethnographique la conduit a une reflexion critique sur la philosophie centree sur les objets de la theorie de l'acteur-reseau et sur le tournant affectif des sciences humaines a la suite des travaux de Gilles Deleuze. Par la metaphore de la «ruine», l'auteur sonde ce qui ne va pas dans les proclamations academiques de tournants theoriques et de changements paradigmatiques. En lieu et place, elle propose une theorie de l'affect engagee dans l'anthropologie, par une reflexion ethnographique sur la melancolie spatiale et materielle, et affirme que l'ethnographie, dans ses moments les plus productifs, est trans-paradigmatique. En gardant ce qui est «ruine» comme digne encore de consideration, l'auteure suggere une approche qui concilie les theories de l'affect et de la subjectivite et du langage et de la materialite.

Affect and discourse – What’s the problem? From affect as excess to affective/discursive practice

Abstract: The recent ‘turn to affect’ in social and cultural research has been built on the notion of affect as a kind of excess. Affect is contrasted with the discursive and the cognitive, and distinguished from ‘domesticated’ emotion. The focus is on the presumed direct hit of events on bodies and on what is sensed rather than known. This formulation in combination with the need for new methods has disconnected discourse studies from research on affect. In common with other recent critics, I argue that the formulation of affect as an excess is unsustainable. I focus here, however, on the methodological consequences. The objective of affect research is to produce textured, lively analyses of multiple modes of engagement and to understand the working of power through patterns of assemblage. Intriguingly, fine-grain studies of discursive practice might realize these aims more effectively than some new, ‘non-representational’ methodological approaches. I contrast one example of non-representational empirical investigation with an example of discursive research on normative episodic sequences. My general aim is to build a more productive dialogue between rich traditions in discourse studies and new lines of research on affect and emotion.

Trends in the Turn to Affect: A Social Psychological Critique

Abstract: This article explores the psychological logics underpinning key perspectives in the ‘turn to affect’. Research on affect raises questions about the categorization of affective states, affective meaning-making, and the processes involved in the transmission of affect. I argue that current approaches risk depopulating affecting scenes, mystifying affective contagion, and authorizing questionable psychobiological arguments. I engage with the work of Sedgwick and Frank, Thrift, and Ahmed to explore these points and suggest that the concept of affective practice offers a more promising social psychological grounding. Notions of affective practice are more commensurate with trends in contemporary psychobiology, explain the limits on affective contagion, and emphasize relationality and negotiation, attentive to the flow of affecting episodes. A practice approach positions affect as a dynamic process, emergent from a polyphony of intersections and feedbacks, working across body states, registrations and categoriz...

Methodology-21: what do we do in the afterward?

Abstract: This paper asks “after what” and situates qualitative research in the present moment in the midst of various “deaths” and “returns.” With a focus on fleshing out post-qualitative research, it first sketches efforts to discipline qualitative research via standards and rubrics as a part of neoliberal govenmentality and then elaborates what post-qualitative might mean via four exemplars. The first is from Sweden, a focus on relational entangled data analysis in the feminist classroom; the next two exemplars are collaborative studies from Australia at the intersection of Western and Aboriginal knowledge systems; the final exemplar is from Egypt, a feminist post-colonial study of the women’s mosque movement. The paper concludes with a call to “imagine forward” out of troubling a narrow scientificity and enacting an “after” of neoliberalism.

On the Role of Affect and Practice in the Production of Place

Abstract: Michel de Certeau's account of the modern city emphasises the ‘doing’ and ‘making’ residents undertake in an attempt to render a city more amenable to an ‘art’ of resistance. Yet, in attending to this doing and making, de Certeau has largely ignored the felt and affective dimensions of city life. Edward Casey provides a compelling means of interrogating these affective dimensions, distinguishing ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ places in everyday life. Thick places are contrived in the imbrications of affect, habit, and practice, presenting opportunities for personal enrichment and a deepening of affective experience. Casey's work restores the affective fecundity of place, even if it fails to provide a clear sense of how thick places might be identified. This paper takes up this challenge in an attempt to clarify the role of affect and practice in the production of place. The paper first reviews the practical and affective dimensions of this place-making before turning to an ethnographic account of young people, place,...