We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
An Affective Exploration of “Ways of Life” in the War on Terror
from III - Applications
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2020
How does the prospect of endless war against a terrifying abstraction mobilize and perpetuate support for its cause? While the war on terror clearly trades in notions of fear, outrage, and horror it also mobilizes a whole set of feelings less obviously associated with terror – the condescending, intimate colonial desires associated with “soft” power and humanitarian tactics. Considering romance as a lens through which to understand popular narratives about the war on terror, this essay explores intimacy and desire – as well as their intersections with discourses of happiness and honor – as forms of affective capture that serve to perpetuate the war on terror. Though the war on terror is most often associated with a mood of fear, popular stories framed through liberal individualism suggest that it also cultivates an attachment to the affective assemblage of security-happiness-compassion, echoed in the tactics of humanitarian or “soft” power.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
