Affective capitalism: Investments and investigations

Methodological takes on affect vary not only according to the theoretical frames, but also according to context, topic, and discipline. [...]in this special issue we emphasise the multiplicity of approaches that can be used to understand and elaborate on the ways in which different bodies, individual and collective, material and immaterial, technological and cultural, financial and economic come together, affect and become affected in different encounters. In the Spinozian-rooted notion of affect as bodily capacities, bodies are not seen as entities, but rather as assemblages that extend beyond clearly defined boundaries (e.g. Massumi, 2002; Seigworth and Gregg, 2010; Blackman, 2012). [...]this account 'moves away from a distinctive focus on the human body to bodies as assemblages of human and non-human processes' (Blackman, 2012: 1), which further accentuates the dynamic nature of affect.