Abstract Incels (short for “involuntary celibates”) are men who struggle to form romantic and sexual relationships. Operating within the manosphere, they share a male supremacist ideology marked by glorification of violence, entitlement to sexual access, and masculine dominance hierarchies. Prior research has emphasized harmful displays of masculinity and heteropatriarchal structures within incel networks, including their links to extremist violence, but has paid less attention to the salience of appearance and masculine hierarchies and their role in sustaining perceived exclusion. This article analyzes incel discourse, focusing on how aesthetic capital constructs masculine hierarchies and functions as a form of currency through “lookism” and related terminology. The findings indicate that while misogyny and pro-violence attitudes are foundational to the incel movement, appearance-focused discourse upholds and amplifies perceptions of victimhood, reinforcing patriarchal, anti-feminist worldviews. Appearance thus emerges as a central marker in incel rhetoric that is tied to the dominance hierarchies that define incel status.

Abstract Public engagement is essential for garnering support for wind farms, but research shows that formal hearing processes often fail to involve citizens, spurring local opposition ‘outside’ these processes. In contrast, this article explores how critical citizens remain ‘within’ the formal hearings, searching for critiques that hold legitimacy in this context. Expanding work on participation in French pragmatic sociology, the article uses the test concept to analyse both the critiques presented by citizens during public hearings and the extent to which ‘the planning institution’ recognises these critiques as legitimate. Based on six qualitative case studies in Denmark, the article identifies three pertinent tests that citizens typically conduct during hearing processes for wind farm projects. First, the article examines ‘persuasion tests’, which mobilise numerous strengths to affect the attitudes of local politicians. Next, ‘potentiality tests’, which establish that alternative solutions are more desirable, are considered. Lastly, ‘de-legitimation tests’, repurposing institutionalised test formats to cancel the planned project, are addressed.

Abstract This article explores the emotive dynamics of everyday life in socioeconomically diverse urban neighbourhoods. It draws on Sara Ahmed's theory of affective circulation and Xavier Guillaume and Jef Huysmans’s thinking on the everyday to introduce the notion of affective abundance, which is designed to unpack how emotions shape and are shaped by urban life. Based on interviews conducted in Helsinki and Hyvinkää (Finland) and Malmö and Eskilstuna (Sweden), it discusses three affectively dense temporal constellations—persistence, succession, and routine—that reveal how emotions operate across historical, situational, and habitual layers of urban experience. The findings show that residents engage in nuanced affective sense-making that resists simplistic binaries of inclusion and exclusion or public debates centred on fear and stigma. The concept of affective abundance enables a temporally layered and emotionally holistic understanding of urban coexistence, emphasizing the subtle and often controversial emotional textures that underpin everyday life in diverse neighbourhoods.

Abstract Youth participation is a two-sided public policy issue. Besides lending legitimacy to decision-making, it is believed to enhance citizenship skills and strengthen democracy. Drawing on participant observation of a youth council in Finland, this paper critically examines these objectives by asking how council members coordinate their interactions to fulfil their institutional duties and how participation transforms their civic capacities. It critically interrogates the implicit definitions of ‘good citizenship’ embedded in the Youth Council by analysing how members become involved in the council and why they disengage from it. The findings offer empirically grounded insights into how participatory practices can, at times, transform participants from passive spectators into active citizens. The analysis highlights that engagement in the Youth Council hinged on the capacity of the representatives to adapt to a certain organisational style. Moreover, the study shows how different capacities and conflicting motivations among participants can cause participatory initiatives to perpetuate disenchantment with democracy instead of promoting it.

Abstract In recent years, both public and academic discourse have taken a pessimistic view of the relationship between social media and politics. It has been argued that platformed politics fosters ideological and affective polarization, resulting in deeper divisions within Western democracies. By analysing the experiences of 34 Finnish politicians through media diaries and interviews gathered and conducted in 2020, this article highlights the conflictual and affective nature of politicians’ digital work. Using emotional and affective labour as an analytical lens, it argues that platforms are, however, spaces for agonistic pluralism. Contrary to the prevailing scepticism, the analysis shines light on affectivity and underscores its revitalizing potential, as evidenced by politicians’ constant assessment of democratic ethics and their attempts to manage relationships with platforms and different audiences. Consequently, the article addresses the limitations of normative aspects of agonistic theory.

Abstract This article discusses how struggles over the meanings of (anti)racism transpired in Finnish mainstream media coverage of the 2020 Black Lives Matter (BLM) demonstrations in Finland and the subsequent public contention related to (anti)racism. Utilizing frame analysis, I examine 243 articles published in three Finnish mainstream media news outlets between May 2020 and September 2021. I analyze what kinds of frames were mobilized and how specific frames were (de)prioritized in mainstream media contention related to (anti)racism during and following the demonstrations. Of the five most prevalent frames, three represent antiracist frames—the frames of experiential racism, structural racism, and colonial complicity—and two represent frames challenging antiracism: the frame from moderation to anti-wokeness and the frame of denial of colonial/racial history. I argue that while mainstream media coverage amplified and validated the antiracist frames, it simultaneously worked to contain contention within normatively defined “acceptable” parameters.

Abstract This article advances a cultural sociological approach to political cleavages by bringing cleavage theory into dialogue with research on symbolic boundaries. While structural and institutional aspects of cleavages are well studied, the ways in which political divides take root in everyday life and collective identities have only recently become a central focus of research. In this piece, I conceptualize the group dimension of cleavage formation and show that a deeper exchange between political and cultural sociology is needed to study this dimension. From a critique of prevailing accounts of group identities and political conflict (which I call tribalist, dispositional, and attitudinal accounts), I develop a relational framework that highlights the importance of symbolic boundary processes. Linking micro-level practices of classification, cultural repertoires, and morality with macro-level political transformations, this perspective sheds light on how political divides are culturally sustained. The article concludes with a call for an interdisciplinary research agenda of cultural cleavage research that integrates political science and cultural sociology perspectives.