Kelly Fritsch

Stina Bergman Blix

Yvonne Wechuli

Marie Sepulchre 

This Research Topic explores theorizing on disability and emotion as one frontier of the Sociology of Emotions as it intersects with Disability Studies. While the Sociology of Emotions has only engaged with disability in limited ways so far, emancipatory knowledge produced about disability within the broad field of Disability Studies (including fields like Mad Studies, Deaf Studies, and Critical Autism Studies) provides a rich archive of emotional first-hand accounts of feelings and affective relations such as joy, pride, shame, disgust, and fear that are often undertheorised. Importantly, the fields of Sociology of Emotions and Disability Studies understand their central topics as primarily social, cultural, political, and ecological phenomena, challenging their conceptualization as natural, individual, or as limited to the realm of the human. By bringing both fields into conversation with one another, this special issue aims to deepen our understanding of emotions, feelings, and affect related to disability.

Affecting, Emoting, and Feeling Disability: Entanglements at the Intersection of Disability Studies and the Sociology of Emotions

Åsa Wettergren

Professional Emotions in Court examines the paramount role of emotions in the legal professions and in the functioning of the democratic judicial system. Based on extensive interview and observation data in Sweden, the authors highlight the silenced background emotions and the tacitly habituated emotion management in the daily work at courts and prosecution offices. Following participants ‘backstage’ – whether at the office or at lunch – in order to observe preparations for and reflections on the performance in court itself, this book sheds light on the emotionality of courtroom interactions, such as professional collaboration, negotiations, and challenges, with the analysis of micro-interactions being situated in the broader structural regime of the legal system – the emotive-cognitive judicial frame – throughout. A demonstration of the false dichotomy between emotion and reason that lies behind the assumption of a judicial system that operates rationally and without emotion, Professional Emotions in Court reveals how this assumption shapes professionals’ perceptions and performance of their work, but hampers emotional reflexivity, and questions whether the judicial system might gain in legitimacy if the role of emotional processes were recognized and reflected upon.

Stina Bergman Blix

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