Abstract

Despite being a relatively popular subject of enquiry among the social sciences and humanities in recent decades, ‘affect’ remains an elusive phenomenon. This paper, rather than trace the development of affect theory in order to pick apart the work of previous scholars, instead explores research that has – implicitly or explicitly – tied affect(s) to relations and relationality. Engaging with anthropological theories of affect and relationships as a form of ‘empirical philosophy,’ as well as with ethnographic data from my own fieldwork, this work seeks to provide that which has eluded previous theorists of affect: a definition of the phenomenon that is broad enough to cover its many aspects, while remaining concise enough for practical application. In doing so, I come to define affect as no more or less than, the experiential aspect of relationality.