Affective geographies: Intergenerational hauntings, bodily affectivity and multiracial subjectivities

Abstract

The ‘incorporated, body memory’ of Indisch people in the diaspora grapples with memories of places left by their ancestors in the colonial Dutch East Indies in the aftermath of two wars, imprisonment and torture. I explore how Indisch travellers who do not purposely invest themselves in memory and genealogy work in their travels nevertheless become overwhelmed by the atmosphere of certain foreign places, and thus become ‘connected’ to the sense of loss that permeates their family’s history. I argue that affectivity needs to be discussed in the context of specific historical contingencies and that more attention needs to be paid to how affectivity is qualified and given meaning. I suggest we need to consider how affectivity operates through and across the binary oppositions of cognitive and affective, and intentional and non-intentional.