Emotions, identities and the ‘collective’ dimension of everyday affective experiences: A response to Baldacchino

Abstract

Baldacchino's article 'The eidetic of belonging' is premised on the claim that the emotional dimension of collective experience has either been neglected by social scientists, conceived as fundamentally irrational and destructive, or couched within an inappropriate 'hydraulic' framework in which in group members are viewed as 'expressing' the primordial emotions of the (essentialized) social categories to which they belong. To resolve these limitations, he argues, we need a new psychol ogy. This psychology should be built around recognition of the so-called 'eidetic of belonging': a concept designed to capture the affectively charged processes through which 'ego objects' become superimposed on 'a collective we-image'. Although the article focuses on the experiences of members of ethnic and national groups, the author implies a more ambitious agenda at several points. Indeed, he proposes nothing less than a generic framework for 'restoring affects to their central place in subject formation'. Let us declare from the outset that we are both social psychologists who work in the field of intergroup relations, and inevitably we view Baldacchino's arguments through this disciplinary lens, with all of the preconceptions and biases that this entails. Bearing this in mind, our response below is organized into three parts. First, we outline some of Baldacchino's main arguments regarding the 'eidetic of belonging'. Second, we interrogate some of the assumptions on which those argu ments are based. Specifically, we suggest that Baldacchino has exaggerated the