Mind-making, Affective Regulation, and Resistance

We extend Haslanger's model of the way social meanings shape our beliefs and desires to discuss the ways in which they shape our emotional responses. We argue that emotional regulation is a core mechanism by which we are made fit for participation in unjust social practices, whether as dominants or subordinates. Recognizing this, liberation movements develop strategies for emotional counter-regulation in order to create agents capable of engaging in sustained liberatory praxis and capable of participating fluidly in the new social relations that they try to bring into being. We explore some of the strategies used in emotional regulation and counter-regulation with particular attention to the ways in which naming our affective responses (e.g., as resentment versus indignation at injustice) shapes the ways they unfold and inducts us into locally current evaluative practices, whether for better or for worse.