Maja Povrzanovic Frykman

Jonas Frykman

Some objects seem especially personal and important to us - be it a quickly packed suitcase, an inherited vase, or a photograph. In Sensitive Objects the authors discuss when, how, and why particular objects appear as 'sensitive'. They do so by analyzing the objects' affective charging in the context of historically embedded practices. Sensitive Objects is a contribution to the upcoming field of 'affect research' that has so far been dominated by psychology and cultural studies, and the authors examine the potential for epistemic gain by connecting the studies of affect with the studies of material culture. The contributors, predominantly ethnologists and anthropologists, use fieldwork to examine how people project affects onto material objects and explore how objects embody or trigger affects and produce affective atmospheres.

Affect and Material Culture

Sensitive Objects

Oscar Hemer

Per-Markku Ristilammi

Conviviality has lately become a catchword not only in academia but also among political activists. This open access book discusses conviviality in relation to the adjoining concepts cosmopolitanism and creolisation. The urgency of today's global predicament is not only an argument for the revival of all three concepts, but also a reason to bring them into dialogue. Ivan Illich envisioned a post-industrial convivial society of 'autonomous individuals and primary groups' (Illich 1973), which resembles present-day manifestations of 'convivialism'. Paul Gilroy refashioned conviviality as a substitute for cosmopolitanism, denoting an ability to be 'at ease' in contexts of diversity (Gilroy 2004). Rather than replacing one concept with the other, the fourteen contributors to this book seek to explore the interconnections - commonalities and differences - between them, suggesting that creolisation is a necessary complement to the already-intertwined concepts of conviviality and cosmopolitanism. Although this volume takes northern Europe as its focus, the contributors take care to put each situation in historical and global contexts in the interests of moving beyond the binary thinking that prevails in terms of methodologies, analytical concepts, and political implementations. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

Maja Povrzanovic Frykman

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