Emotional Transformations and Activist Communities: Harnessing Emotion in German ANTI-RACIST and ANTI-FASCIST Political Essays

This article examines how authors of political essays harness emotion to promote activist causes. Drawing examples from the German anthologies Eure Heimat ist unser Albtraum (2019), Sisters and Souls (2015) and Sisters and Souls 2 (2021), I argue that political essays depict processes of emotional transformation that allow individuals to overcome inertia arising from fear or despair. I show that an important aim of anti-racist, anti-fascist and feminist activism is to model emotional freedom, understood as the possibility safely to experience and express any range of emotions including those perceived as ‘negative’. My discussion builds on sociological research on activist burnout and cultural theories about the relationships between emotions and politics. I contend that activist communities that are imagined as sites of emotional freedom also demand a degree of emotional alignment. If not carefully managed, such alignment can reproduce the harmful regulation of feelings that anti-racist and anti-fascist movements seek to overcome.