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Anthropology of Emotion

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The anthropology of emotion is the study of how emotions are culturally constructed, expressed, and experienced across different societies. It examines the social, historical, and contextual factors that shape emotional practices and meanings, exploring the interplay between individual feelings and collective cultural norms.
lightbulbAbout this topic
The anthropology of emotion is the study of how emotions are culturally constructed, expressed, and experienced across different societies. It examines the social, historical, and contextual factors that shape emotional practices and meanings, exploring the interplay between individual feelings and collective cultural norms.

Key research themes

1. How do culture and biology interact to shape the semantics, expression, and experience of emotions?

This research area investigates the complex interplay between universal biological underpinnings of emotion and culturally specific variations in emotion meaning, expression, and experience. It matters because understanding this interplay can clarify how emotions are both biologically rooted and socially constructed, illuminating cross-cultural communication, emotional socialization, and the evolution of emotion concepts.

Key finding: Jackson et al. (2019) analyzed colexification in 2474 languages and found significant variation in emotion term networks across cultures, with similarity predicted by geographic proximity. Yet a universal structure emerged... Read more
Key finding: This study demonstrated that emotional expression, verbal and nonverbal, varies systematically according to cultural dimensions such as masculinity, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance. Asian cultures tend to show... Read more
Key finding: De Leersnyder et al. argue that emotions are culturally constructed through 'doing emotions' consistent with cultural mandates that reflect ideals about being a good person. Empirical evidence shows that individuals whose... Read more
Key finding: Jack et al. (2016) found that cultural differences in expressiveness (greater in Americans than Chinese) corresponded with how somatosensory brain regions like the dorsal anterior insula correlated trial-by-trial with... Read more

2. What roles do emotions play in social life, relational contexts, and cultural practices according to anthropological and sociological perspectives?

This theme focuses on the social functions of emotions within interpersonal relations, social norms, and cultural frameworks. It emphasizes emotions as relational phenomena integral to social ordering, interaction, and identity construction. Investigating this reveals how emotions shape and are shaped by socio-cultural structures, affecting everything from everyday interactions to political and religious life.

Key finding: The paper synthesizes sociological conceptualizations distinguishing primary emotions (biological, universal) from secondary emotions (socially and culturally conditioned), and further differentiates between emotions,... Read more
Key finding: This work critiques overly individualistic or biologically reductionist views by proposing an anti-humanist sociology of affect, conceptualizing emotions as part of broader affective flows connecting bodies, institutions, and... Read more
Key finding: This paper extends Social Functionalist Theory by positing that emotions serve six relational needs (security, commitment, status, trust, fairness, belonging) and are co-constitutive of relationships and culture. It details... Read more
Key finding: Based on ethnographic and developmental data from the Bara (Madagascar) and Tao (Taiwan), the authors identify 'socializing emotions' (fear for Bara, anxiety for Tao) as culturally emphasized emotions used in child-rearing to... Read more

3. How are emotions enacted and understood through embodied experience, narrative, and cultural meaning in anthropology and philosophy?

This theme explores phenomenological, enactivist, and narrative approaches to emotions, emphasizing embodied affectivity, lived experience, and the enactment of emotions through social and cultural practices. It advances the understanding of emotions beyond cognitive appraisal or discrete states, situating them as dynamic, embodied engagements with the world, and as meaningful phenomena shaped by language, culture, and embodied cognition.

Key finding: This paper posits emotions as object-directed situational affective episodes realized through embodied affective comportment and culturally circumscribed emotion concepts. It stresses emotions' relational and enactive nature,... Read more
Key finding: The authors propose a radical embodied and enactivist view that emotions do not merely represent pre-given world features but enact new properties, integrating bodily states and environmental affordances. They critically... Read more
Key finding: Beatty advocates for an 'emotionally engaged anthropology' that privileges narrative and ethnographic embodiment over detached theorizing. Through fieldwork in Nias and Java, he shows how narrative structures convey emotional... Read more

All papers in Anthropology of Emotion

El presente libro es el resultado de la investigación realizada para obtener el grado de Doctora en Geografía y Ordenación territorial, en él se analiza de forma comparativa los cambios en las relaciones de género atribuibles a la... more
This article reflects on the characteristics of phenomenological reduction in its Husserlian foundation, in comparison with the volumographic reduction advocated by the authors, with the aim of describing and analysing human beings, each... more
Não existe uma única maneira de ser LGBTQIA+ na periferia. Em Salvador, no entanto, o interesse pela dança mobiliza com alguma frequência pessoas LGBTQIA+ de classe popular a compor coletivos, alguns dos quais denominados “bondes”, em... more
A partir da experiência pioneira de três pesquisadoras do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, que ingressaram na instituição no início da década de 1960, analisamos o impacto de suas trajetórias na formação de novas gerações de mulheres, atravessando... more
Combining psychological and anthropological work indicates that sleep, dreaming, and the imagination are involved in regulating mood and updating individual and collective knowledge. Psychologists often implicitly assume that all dreamers... more
Este estudo é parte da pesquisa de doutorado em Ensino em Biociências e Saúde e considera as possíveis influências culturais e históricas na formação científica de jovens, a partir do programa Sakura Science, organizado pela Agência... more
The article deals with the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on ethnographic field research and the research areas themselves -both the people living there and the anthropologists and anthropologists. My reflections are based on experience,... more
In: Kurdish Women Through History, Culture and Resistance edited by Shahrzad Mojab, 123-147. Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers. Kurdish women in Turkey find themselves urged to raise their voices by a plethora of actors. The Kurdish... more
du collectif Draine. Elles et il sont sociolinguistiques, spécialistes de l'analyse de discours. Avertissement : Cet ouvrage est le fruit d'une écriture collaborative et constitue un texte homogène.
du collectif Draine. Elles et il sont sociolinguistiques, spécialistes de l'analyse de discours. Avertissement : Cet ouvrage est le fruit d'une écriture collaborative et constitue un texte homogène.
O presente trabalho tem como objetivo pensar sobre os discursos da segurança, que têm assumido uma centralidade nas últimas décadas, e as noções de monstros e monstruosidade. Entendemos que a centralidade parece se alimentar do espectro... more
Neste artigo analisamos o conto “Dançando pelo céu depois de toda chuva”, que conta a história de duas personagens transgêneras, vistas como monstros, passando pelos conflitos da transfobia real e do terror sobrenatural. Utilizamos a... more
Islamic mehir practices (dower) and other financial arrangements during a marriage reveal how marriage, gender and religion are understood and reconfigured in Istanbul today. Drawing on religious women's narratives of mehir and gifts of... more
Emotion terminology of human languages has recently been the subject of a lot of linguistic investigations from many different ankles. In line with the previous studies dealing with prototype approach to emotion concepts on four... more
Resumen: Hace algunos años, un destacado antropólogo mexicano se interrogaba ante su auditorio acerca de la factibilidad metodológica de un estudio antropológico de las emociones humanas. Su preocupación giraba en torno a los límites del... more
This chapter introduces the volume’s project, a cross-cultural comparison of approaches to emotion in ancient China and ancient Greece and in the two disciplines which have investigated those cultures. It thus encompasses comparison of... more
No Brasil, segundo dados do Censo Demográfico de 2010, realizado pelo Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE), cerca de 6,4 milhões de mulheres viviam em territórios, conhecidos como favelas, que concentram vulnerabilidade,... more
L'angoisse devant la mort est un sentiment partagé par tous les hommes depuis les origines de l'humanité et par conséquent elle est repérable dans les oeuvres majeures de l'humanité.
O presente artigo visa contribuir para reflexão acerca das alternativas de capacitação e qualificação de docentes atuantes no ensino técnico, com base na experiência do Programa de Aperfeiçoamento do Ensino Técnico (PAETEC), desenvolvido... more
Variations of the animal body plan morphology and morphometry can be used as prognostic tools of their habitat quality. The potential of the moon jellyfish (Aurelia spp.) as a new model organism has been poorly tested. However, as a... more
Ce numéro de L’Homme propose de renouer le dialogue interdisciplinaire entre l’histoire et l’anthropologie à partir de la notion de « sensibilité » entendue au sens large : celle-ci regroupe ainsi les divers sens extéroceptifs et... more
O Programa de Vocação Científica da Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Provoc-Fiocruz), no Rio de Janeiro, possibilita há mais de trinta anos que estudantes no ensino médio iniciem as atividades científicas por convênios firmados com escolas e/ou... more
An inseparable part of human life, emotions were neglected in the academic discourse in the West for a long time, because scholars juxtaposed them with thought and reason. Yet educational research reveals that emotions are manifestations... more
This paper presents an interdiscursive analysis of a public apology made before the International Criminal Court (ICC) by a Malian Islamist accused of the destruction of cultural heritage in Timbuktu. It analyzes (a) how the... more
The scientific vocational program developed in the last thirty years by a Brazilian research institution in the areas of life sciences and health seeks to "distinguish high school students who identify themselves with scientific... more
Esta investigação 3 tem como objeto principal a linguagem utilizada pelos estudantes participantes do Programa de Vocação Científica (Provoc) da Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz). Nossa hipótese era de que alguns alunos que participam do... more
Versão revisada do trabalho "A visão de alunos sobre a predominância feminina no Programa de Vocação Científica da Fundação Oswaldo Cruz", apresentado em 2007 para o Encontro Nacional de Pesquisa em Educação em Ciências (VI ENPEC)... more
Abstract: The paper is divided into two parts. In the first one, an author analyses her changing position in the field, highlighting a gender and maritial status. Positionality not only gives various access to interlocutors but also... more
For the people of the Balkan Peninsula migration is one of the central socio-cultural features. Movements have been both individual and massive, and caused by different motivations: religious, economic, political or related to regional... more
Based on fieldwork in western Macedonia, I examine Muslim attendance of Orthodox churches and monasteries. Today, only Muslims live in the villages I researched, although in the 1960s and 1970s these places were also inhabited by Orthodox... more
This paper investigates the embodied conceptualization of emotions from a cognitive linguistic perspective, focusing on the metaphorical construal of the body and its parts as containers for various types of anger in English, Russian, and... more
Psychology studies prioritize a broad understanding of anger as a prototypically negative and confrontational emotion triggered by an offense against the self or relevant others, typically leading to the experiencer's loss of control and... more
Affective meaning is pervasive in language. In this chapter we discuss its presence at multiple levels of linguistic analysis, with special attention to the lexicon. In a first introduction to the phenomenon, we explain and illustrate two... more
Com o reconhecimento e a regulamentação do direito ao trabalho das pessoas com deficiência, o tema veio ganhando espaço na academia. Contudo, sem ênfase sobre a situação das mulheres. O objetivo deste artigo, parte de estudo mais amplo... more
Significant numbers of ethnographic studies from different parts of the world emphasize lament as a women's genre, with cross-cultural analyses indicating that women predominate among the genre's performers. These performances are often... more
O Programa de Vocação Científica da Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Provoc-Fiocruz) é a primeira proposta formal de iniciação científica na educação básica, no Brasil, sob supervisão de pesquisadores-orientadores desta instituição. Desde 1986,... more
Com o reconhecimento e a regulamentação do direito ao trabalho das pessoas com deficiência, o tema veio ganhando espaço na academia. Contudo, sem ênfase sobre a situação das mulheres. O objetivo deste artigo, parte de estudo mais amplo... more
Men’s earnings have become less important as a predictor of marriage rates in a world where women are thriving educationally and economically. Standards have risen. There are wide and high expectations for material well-being in marriage.... more
is not known for being a traditionalist in every respect. With The Meaning of Disgust, however, he offers a distinctly traditional exercise in phenomenology and speculative explanation. This traditionalism is both the book's strength as a... more
Edykt ustalający czas trwania żałoby na Dolnym Śląsku
IV situations auxquelles elles sont confrontées, les directions d'école maîtrisent leurs émotions }lu' elles ne laissent paraître et qui sont principalement inhibées. Si la gestion par compromis diminue le pouvoir d'action dans les prises... more
Tom a tout autant de mal à parler des émotions et se livrera d'avantage à propos de différences qu'il observe dans son quotidien et dans la vie publique.
Dans cet entretien approfondi je reviens sur le parcours de Aída Quinatoa, indienne et migrante économique équatorienne vivant en Espagne, où elle est devenue leader de la mobilisation des migrants contre l’« arnaque im- mobilière »,... more
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