ABSTRACT
With specific attention to the notion of “experience,” this chapter focuses on the conceptual terrains on which International Relations (IR) scholars might conduct emotions research. It utilizes sensory engagement with critical realism to launch a broader reflection on the methodological challenge emotions pose, for both traditional empiricism and its successors. The chapter also utilizes brief examples involving cultural pluralism and technological mediation to showcase the need to excavate regimes of intelligible experience. It considers the inadequacy of observability as a way of organizing the study of emotion and affect in IR. The chapter shows that both conventional empiricism and critical realism accept a truncated conception of experience and outline a richer, “radical empiricist” alternative. It also considers the politics of experience, drawing on insights from feminist and cultural theory to suggest that “experience” is inevitably a product of concepts and assumptions that place some experiential realities outside the realm of what is habitually observed.
