Sara Ahmed Feminist Attachments

188 THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF EMOTION

One must persist because of I his persistence, by keeping feminism alivie inthe present. In fact, some degree of stubbortiness in relation to one's hopesmay be important: one can struggle for one's investments, even if one is opento the possibility of giving them up. For feminists, a political and stratcgicqttestion remains: When should we let go? And w hat should we let go of?Such a question has no immediate resolution: we must decide, always, whatto do, as a decision that must he made again, and again, in each present wefind ourselves in. This decision is not mine, or even yours — we have to thinkabout how decisions can he mate with or fiar others. Making a decision -which means refusing to allow 'things' to he already decided — might alsomean qttestioning one's investments, although this does not require sus-pending one's investments. One can be invested and open to those invest-ments being challenged through the contact we have with others.contact keeps us open; being aftected by others is crucial to the opening upof feminism to the uncertaint y of the future.

This opening is an inter\ al in time, and that interval is the time tbr action:it is now, w hen we must do the work of teaching, protesting, naming, feeling,and connecting with others. The (wellness that gat tiers in the struggle against`what is' involves the coming together of diftexem boches in this present time.It is here that the feminist 'we' becomes aitective. For the opening up of thatwhich is possible does not just take place in time, in that loop between presentand fin tire. The opening up also iaÁ'es time. The time of opening is the timeof collecting together. Une does not hope alune, but for others, whose painone does not feel, but w hose pain becomes a thread in the weave of thepresent, touched as it is by all that could be. Through the work of listeningto others, oí hearing the force of their pain and t he energy of their anger, oflearning to be surprised by all that one feels oneself to be against; throughall oí this, a 'we' is fbrined, and an attachment is made. This is a feministattachment and an attachment to feminism and it is moving. I am moved bythe `we', as the 'we' is an effect of those who move towards it. It is not aninnocent 'we', or one that stands still. It is affected by that which it is against,and hence also bv that which it is for, what it enables, shapes, makes pos-sible. I lere, you might say, one moves towards others, others who are attachedto feminism, as a movement away from that which we are against. Suchmovements create the suffice of a feminist communit v. In the forming anddeforming of attachments: in the writing, conversations, the doing, the work,feminism moves, and is moved. It connects and is connected. More than any-t hing, it is in the alignment of the 'we' with the the feminist subject withthe feminist collective, an alignment which is imperfect and hence genera-tive, that a new grammar of social existence may yet be possible. The 'we' offeminism is not its foundation ., it is an effect of the impressions made byothers who take the risk of inhahiting its llame. Of course, this nar-

FEMINIST ATTACHMENTS 189

rative has another edge: the 'we' of feminism is shaped by some boches, more

Iban others.It is hence important that we don't instan feminism as the object of hope,

e‘ en if feminism is what gives us hope. Returning to the opening of thischaptcr, feminists who speak out against forms of social violence are oftendismissed as motivated by negative passion. The risks of foregroundingthe emotions of feminism are clear. Some risks are, of course, worth taking.Feminists who have spoken out against the war on terrorism have done soin a way that expresses hope for another kind of world, another kind of wayof inhabiting the world with others. The hope for 'transnational solidaritv',to use Chandra Talpade \lohanty's (2003) term, might lie in taking a femi-

nist orientation, a way of facing the world, which includes facing what wemight not recognise, w ith others we do not yet know. When teministsspoke out against the 'war on terror', they claimed such solidarity. Inspeaking against the war as a form of terrorism, they spoke for sumething,in speeches that viere reaching out for another orientation to the world.What we `speak for' when 'we speak against' is not always available to us,as an object that can be delineated in the present. Indeed, spcaking forsomet !ling, rather iban someone, often involves living with the uncertaintyof what is possible in the world that we inhabit. Solidarity does not assumethat our struggles are the same struggles, or that our pain is the same pain,or that our hope is for the same future. Solidarit ∎ involves commitment,

and work, as well as the recognition that even if we do not have the

same feelings, or the same lives, or the same bodies, we do live on common

ground.

NOTES

Of course, this image of the angry black woman has a long history. See Lorde (1984),

Moreton-Rohinson (2003), as well as Thobani (2003: 401).We could rethink, for example, the relation between femininity and feminism. On theone hand, feminist politics involves the recognition of femininity as a social norm thatis linked tu the subordination of women. Feminism hence rcads the `naturalliess' of

femininit y as an effect of poss-er (13utler 1990). I lowever, this does not mean identifyingas a feminist necessarily means transcending or giving up on femininity. Onc'sinvestment in femininity as it mere an ideal does not nccessarily dissipate in themoment of recognising its normative function in policing gendered bodies. We can alsounderstand investment in tcrms of how value accrues: being 'good' at femininity forwomen can gire you value, and to give up on femininity can be to risk losing value thatone has accrued over time, which can be especiall n significan, if one feels under-valucd

in other ways. To be invested in an attribute that is linkcd to one's subordination is aneffect of subordination: onc's value becomes dependent on how one tires up to thatideal, even if the ideal is what restricts possibilities for gendered subjects. What isclear here is that even when we consciously recognise something, and disagree with

190 THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF EMOTION

something, our investments in what embodies that something cannot simply be willedaway. It tales t rine to mace un and to more amay; giren how investments in norms surfacein bodies, then one's bodily relation to the world, and cspecially to those orle lores, isreorientated if une wishcs not to embody a norte in thc same way.This argument clearly has implications for thcorics of agency. To deconstruct theopposition between action and reaction is not to say that agency is impossible. But it isto relocate agency from the individual to the interface between individuals and worlds;agency is a matter of what actions are possible giren how we are shaped bv our contact

with others. lo this model, I would not be an agent insolar as I am not enacted opon (thec rIZT1771-TiTreral model). 1 would be an agent insolar as that which affects me does notdetermine my action, but learcs room for a decision. Politics is the space lcft betweenthe surfaces of reaction and the necessity of a decision ahora what to do. This modcleontrasts with Lois McNay's argument, which links agency with the creativity of action,whcrc thc capability for action is dcfined as a prc-disposition and originare (McNay2000: 3, 18, 22). Whilst my work leaves room for creatire action (to be shaped is not tohave one's course of action be fully determined), it also suggests that there is no originalaction, which is not already a forro of reaction, or shaped b n the contact we have withothers. To reart is not always la be reaetionary.In interpersonal communication, the blocking of an emotion can load to theintensification of emotions: your inability to `hear' my angcr may make me angrier.Blockages aren't only effects of defensive hehaviours, but are also effects of emotionalcollisions. For example, if I express my anger, and someone returns that anger withreasonableness, inclifference or oven happiness, thcn the fceling of anger is intensified.Or the anger could slide loto another emotion: despair, frustration, bitterness. As Isuggested in the Introduction to the book, emotions involve tension and they can be intension: the miscommunication nf emotions inrolves a process intenstlieation. Thanks toMimi Sheller for helping me forrnulate this point.I ant very indebted to Lauren 11cHant, whose insightful question, 'When do normsbecome firrms?' has provided an inspiration for my work.Ghassan Hage offers an excellent analysis of the political economy of hope in Against

Paranoid Nationalism (2003). I le suggcsts that hope and hopefulness are distributcd, andthat in paranoid nationalism, there is not enough hope to go around. Subjects hencedon't have anv hope to gire to others (Hage 2003: 9). Whilst I fiad ibis argumentconvincing, it is in danger of supporting a modcl of hope as something we must have.Hage suggests that if suhjects viere at home, 'clidled', felt cared for, tiren they wouldbe more hospitable to others. This is surprisingl ∎ Glose to New I.abour's version ofmulticultural Britain: the nation must Cake caro of itself, and have cnough for itself,belitre it can he generous to others. Our tasé might he to challenge the idea that accessto care and hope for some are necessary conditions for being generous towards others.

7. There is a tendency to privilege the futuro in some feminist thcorv, see, for example,Grosz (1999: 15). For a critique of this tendency and how it can forget the ethicalsignificance of thc past, sce Ahmed (2002) and Kilby (2002).