“affect is what moves us.
It’s a hunch. A visceral prompt”
(Hickey-Moodey 2013:79).
Affect is more than emotion. It is “our power to affect the world around us and our power to be affected by it, along with the relationship between these two powers” (Hardt in Clough, 2007: ix). Drawing on Deleuzian concepts, it is a dynamic opening up to possibilities that can bring change. This transition is explained by Massumi (2002:12) as a “passing of a threshold, seen from the point of view of the change in capacity” ...“[w]hen you affect something, you are at the same time opening yourself up to being affected in turn, and in a slightly different way than you might have been the moment before. You have made a transition, however slight”. HIckey-Moodey (2013:80) explains this movement as a change in capacity that alters the limits of a body, “the margin of modulation”, that can be human or non-human, or an assemblage.
Emotion on the other hand is considered “an expression of affect in gesture and language” (Massumi 2002:232). Emotions are frequently associated with feelings leading to a physical response that Ducey (i2007:192) suggests is “autonomous from conscious thought and attention”. Emotions like fear, joy, shame, guilt and anger form part of our affective capacities that are sensed and become visible through and in certain experiences.
In the discipline of obstetrics, high levels of tension in the birthing performance release many emotions that vary for each of the role players. For instance there is fear of error for the healthcare providers and medical students, fear of the unknown for the mother-to-be, mixed with possible joy for the arrival of a new life. At times students express anger and shock at practices they witness when human rights violations are recognized in the birthing units. Often these students feel helpless to intervene leaving them with a sense of guilt and shame. This affective force, or lack thereof, impacts on their becoming-doctors. The intensity of the forces intersecting in obstetrics learning signifies the complex junction of political, social and cultural factors that influence the unfolding birthing events in public health facilities.
The practical obstetrics learning marks a vital moment, a defining and transformative threshold for medical students that is often viewed as the time of becoming real doctors. Despite my initial apprehension at engaging with affect in this research project, it seems an essential aspect of my study that seeks to develop a socially just pedagogy in obstetrics learning. “Affect ... shadows every event. It is the source of the unexpected, of the unmotivated, of surprise” (Ducey 2007:192). Sensitivity to the affective forces in the intra-actions of the material-discursive practices in student learning can provide important insights into the practical and political understanding of student learning. The image above was created on my iPad using the Pixelmater App. The brown ribbon-like symbols are similar to HIV/Aids activism and breast cancer, signifying collective affective agency.
Ducey, A. 2007. More than a job: Meaning,
affect, and training health care workers. in Clough, P. (ed.) The Affective Turn: Theorising the Social. Durham and London:
Duke University Press. pp. 187-208.
Massumi, B. 2002. Navigating Movements -- with
Brian Massumi. In Zournazi, M. (ed.) Hope: new
philosophies for change. Pluto Press, Australia. pp. 210-243.
