ABSTRACT

Loyalty is an emotion of connection and embeddedness, framed via an expectation of reciprocity and predictability in the future. Thus, conflict is inevitable as loyalty always has the ever-present threat of betrayal. As an interactional emotion, loyalty scaffolds our connections, we act now based on past interactions and assume they will hold true in the future. This chapter explains our loyalties by establishing that it is an emotion as we can apply the tools of emotions theory to the phenomenon as loyalty is present in our daily passionate interactions. Then, the components of loyalty are disassembled by looking at the concepts of: reciprocity, layering, identity formation, motivation and conflict. This leads to the exploration of our everyday loyalties, via our familial (including pets), sporting, commercialised and national loyalties. Loyalty is an emotion enacted in the present, often via ritual and overt communal displays of belonging. When we call upon, or call for loyalty, the enacted reciprocity that follows affirms our belonging and connections. The sting in the tail of loyalty as a passion is that we need that risk of disloyalty, for without a threat to our loyalty, however unrealistic, we cannot be loyal.