Emotions, Activism, and Social Change

Our current times are brimming with social activism. Some say that the U.S. has not seen this level of activism since the 1960s. Activists fervently believe that their efforts will lead to social change. On the other hand, many who observe activists believe that activist efforts are strident and ineffective. Who is right? Emotions, Activism, and Social Change takes up that question, drawing on insights from sociology, social psychology, philosophy, and law and society.

This book focuses particularly on anger, and investigates competing views about the emotion. On the one hand, activists believe that anger is the key way to signal both their commitment to their cause and its moral justness. In contrast, those observing activists often believe activist anger is irrational and dangerous. The book posits that the contradictory rules about anger reflect facts about who holds power in our current society as well as about who constructs emotional labor rules about race and gender.

Instead of prioritizing an individual actor's point of view, the book situates emotional labor within a web of relationships. That reorientation reveals how activists might reconsider the role of anger in their work and construct new practices that better support social change. The text investigates some examples of social change involving changing the law to demonstrate the way in which that new approach to anger can be effective.