Agency and atmospheres of inclusion and exclusion

Abstract

This chapter argues that atmospheres do things. They actively regulate experience and behaviour—and crucially, open up (or close down) forms of social connectedness. They do these things because atmospheres do not merely provide affective colour or texture. They also furnish possibilities—possibilities that help or hinder us as we find our way in the world. This chapter unpacks this claim by considering atmospheres as “affective arrangements.” Along the way, the chapter develops a distinction between “atmospheres of inclusion” and “atmospheres of exclusion” and applies this distinction to two case studies: Sarah Ahmed's critical phenomenology of “stopped bodies,” and social difficulties in autism. Both of these cases highlight the deep connection between atmospheres and agency.