ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the role of emotions and affect in terms of men’s organizing from a predominantly sociological focus, including some approaches from cultural studies and social psychology. It starts with an explanation of the differences between approaches to emotions and affect, as well as key differences within traditions. The chapter observes that while the literature on emotions has often looked at emotions as properties of individuals, which can be “worked on” approaches to affect have conceptualized embodied responses more in terms of how they circulate and structure relations between people. In relation to men and masculinity/ies, while there has been a tendency to view acceptable and unacceptable emotions within organizations as inherently gendered – including a focus on men’s unemotionality – there has been a move towards exploring how men express emotions within and in relation to organizations as part of a broader discourse around “softening” and “caring” masculinity. The chapter finally draws on the affective turn in feminist theory, to indicate how thinking about men’s organizational behaviour and organizing as structured through affective practice is a means to avoid the progressive/regressive binary associated with a focus on men’s emotional expression while still foregrounding emotional experience.
