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Neoliberal affects

Bibliographic Data

ID8078366
AuthorsBen Anderson (0000-0002-9541-6142, Durham University, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume40
Issue6
Pages734-753
Publication date2015-11-06
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueProgress in Human Geography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0309-1325 • E-ISSN: 1477-0288
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0309132515613167
OpenAlexW4247433852
LanguageEN
Citations received117
References cited49

Claims about neoliberalism and its geographies frequently involve assumptions about the affective life of neoliberalism and/or neoliberal societies. However, existing cultural approaches to neoliberalism as a discursive formation, an ideology or governmentality collapse a concern with affect into a focus on the operation of signifying-subjectfying processes that make ‘neoliberal subjects’. Political economy approaches only make implicit claims about the ‘mood’ of neoliberal societies. In this paper, I argue that collective affects are part of the conditions of formation for particular neoliberalisms and therefore understanding the affective life of neoliberalism is critical to explaining how it emerges, forms and changes. Through examples including The Mont Pelerin Society, the Chicago School of Economics and Thatcherism, I propose a vocabulary that supplements existing approaches by focusing on the affective conditions for neoliberalism, specifically the atmospheres that are part of the formation of neoliberal reason and the structures of feeling that condition how particular neoliberalisms actualize in the midst of other things. The result is a way of discerning neoliberalisms as both conditioned by affects and ‘actually existing’ affectively – as dispersed affective ‘qualities’ or ‘senses

Aesthetics · Economics · Governmentality · Ideology · Neoliberalism (international relations · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Sociology · Thatcherism · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law · Philosophy · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism · Urban Planning and Governance

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Unique citing works117
Citations per year11,7
Citation span2016 - 2026 (11)
Citation velocitycurrent
Highly citedYes
Citation typesNeutral: 115
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