ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I try to make a case for the importance of taking affects seriously if we want to understand the unequal distribution of power and resources within intimate relations. Friendship is presented as a type of personal relationship in which the intersections between affects and power relations become visible in two ways: through the patterned, routinized, ongoing flows of affects; and also through their uncanny, unbidden side, which impacts unexpectedly on intimate relationships. Drawing on empirical data from a study of friendship in Portugal, I focus on one particular story, that of David, whose trajectory of upward social mobility highlights the intricate links between affects and social structure. After an introduction in which the topic is presented as situated at the crossroads between the sociology of friendship and affect theory, the chapter discusses the methodological challenges of affect research and the particular options that guided the subsequent claims. The chapter goes on to demonstrate how affects circulate, ‘stick’, and accumulate around a specific figure (the Good Pupil), helping to shape an ethos which is decisive for the hegemonic narrative of upward social mobility and stories of individual success in capitalist societies. Subsequently, the chapter argues that friendship relations, through the affective practices that they entail, may be construed as affective communities that help individuals to cope with the hardships of changing place in the social structure. As such, they contribute to the creation of an affective environment that is ‘safe’ for navigating the uncertainty of an unfamiliar context where one does not occupy the dominant position.
