Tuula Juvonen and Marjo Kolehmainen, Univ. of Tampere, Finland: Academy of Finland funded research project “Just the Two of Us? Affective Inequalities in Intimate Relationships” (Web)

Proposals by: 30.09.2016

The editors invite submissions to an edited book which focuses on the affective dynamics of intimate relationships, especially on the ways in which the social significance of affective inequalities expands our understanding about the operations of power.

Despite the shifts in the ways in which intimate lives are organized in late-modern Western societies, a couple relationship still has a high status and a robust allure. Also various forms of intimate relationships – be it dating, a marriage, a fling or an affair – are expected to offer personal and emotional fulfilment. Yet at the same time both normative and non-normative relationships are sites in which classifications, hierarchies and asymmetries related to gender and sexuality are renewed. It is crucial to notice how such inequalities are increasingly mediated affectively. By arguing that the effects of power relations are accumulated affectively in intimate relationships, this book aims to produce novel knowledge on the ways in which power relations operate in late-modern societies. Read more … (Web).