Contesting Compassion

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3448284
AutoresNicole Vitellone (0000-0002-0826-5973, autor de correspondencia)
Año2011
Volumen59
Número3
Páginas579-596
Fecha de publicación2011-08-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Sociological Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0038-0261 • E-ISSN: 1467-954X
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-954x.2011.02013.x
OpenAlexW4236034547
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas12
Referencias citadas20

This paper investigates the political possibilities and limitations of compassion. My aim is to consider how and under what conditions compassion is elicited and whether such emotions can institute social transformation. Whilst compassion is understood to be located in political and cultural contexts, this paper investigates the extent to which compassion shapes those contexts in terms of political imaginaries. Drawing on the work of Bourdieu I consider the ways that compassion positions people in relations with 'sufferers' affectively, including shaping perceptions and understandings of causes and effects. To illustrate this I examine visual representations of drug use, one from a Barnardo's child poverty advertising campaign and the other a photo-ethnography of drug suffering. Focusing on the imagery of the syringe as a moving device I show how the object reworks the affect of compassion in ways that require critique and contestation

Aesthetics · Affect (linguistics · Compassion · Epistemology · Ethnography · Object (grammar · Perception · Political science · Politics · Poverty · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Communication · Community Health and Development · Computer Science · Law · Psychology · Social and Cultural Dynamics · Social Psychology