From Emotion to Affect: Tracing Forces of Belonging in Singapore’s Third Places

Third places such as parks, shops, and places of worship can enable connections beyond existing social circles, yet how this happens, particularly for older adults, remains underexplored. This article reconceptualizes belonging as an affective force that becomes atmospheric under particular conditions: circulating through space to envelop and orient bodies toward connection, rather than remaining an interiorized feeling, psychological need, or identity claim. Bringing Wetherell’s concept of affective practice into dialogue with Anderson’s notion of affective atmospheres, I show how repeated embodied practices and spatial configurations generate collective orientations that make cross-boundary encounters more likely. Methodologically, I develop affective sociograms to trace what participants can name only partially, mapping how vernacular emotional expressions (“feeling valued,” “holy vibes”) align with patterned behavioral shifts (lingering, greeting, sharing) that register how belonging operates. Drawing on participant observation and interviews with thirty older adults in Singapore, I analyze how commercial, spiritual, and green spaces generate distinct atmospheric qualities as recognition exchanges, communal rituals, and shared vulnerability accumulate within them. Findings reveal how these atmospheres orient bodies toward unexpected encounters (shopkeepers become confidants, worshippers cross religious boundaries, strangers share resources), demonstrating belonging’s capacity to expand social networks beyond familiar or homophilic social circles. This article advances affect geography by (1) providing an empirical method for tracing affect, (2) specifying belonging’s connective operations beyond feelings or identity, and (3) revealing how atmospheric conditions in third places enable informal support networks for older adults.