Ecologies of Affect offers a synthetic introduction to the felt dynamics of cities and the character of places. The contributors capture the significance of affects including desire, nostalgia, memory, and hope in forming the identity and tone of places. The critical intervention this collection of essays makes is an active, consistent engagement with the virtualities that produce and refract our idealized attachments to place. Contributors show how place images, and attempts to build communities, are, rather than abstractions, fundamentally tied to and revolve around such intangibles. We understand nostalgia, desire, and hope as virtual; that is, even though they are not material, they are nevertheless real and must be accounted for. In this book, the authors take up affect, emotion, and emplacement and consider them in relation to one another and how they work to produce and are produced by certain temporal and spatial dimensions.

The aim of the book is to inspire readers to consider space and place beyond their material properties and attend to the imaginary places and ideals that underpin and produce material places and social spaces. This collection will be useful to practitioners and students seeking to understand the power of affect and the importance of virtualities within contemporary societies, where intangible goods have taken on an increasing value.

About the Author
Tonya Davidson is a Ph.D. Candidate in sociology at the University of Alberta. Her dissertation research is on the dynamic social lives of a series of monuments in Ottawa. She can be found at www.tonya-davidson.ca.

Ondine Park is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Alberta and is interested in urban and cultural studies and social theory. Her most recent research focuses on the idea and promise of the suburb. She can be found at www.ualberta.ca/~opark.

Rob Shields is the H.M. Tory Chair in the Departments of Sociology and Art and Design at the University of Alberta. He is co-editor of the journal Space and Culture, and his most recent works include What Is a City? Rethinking the Urban after Katrina (ed., 2008) and Building Tomorrow: Innovation in Construction (ed., 2005).

Reviews
``A stellar collection of essays; sharply focused, cohesive and very smart... The theory is never simply floating off the page and into the ether but is always grounded in some particular phenomenon or experience and, as examples of passionately engaged scholarship, the essays offer a coherent critical apparatus that simultaneously enacts how to go about using concepts like `affect' or `the virtual' in a very concrete fashion. That is, the chapters don't just do the talk (they never bog down in pure philosophy-speak), they walk the walk.'' -- Gregory J. Seigworth, Millersville University, Pennsylvania, co-editor, with MelissaGregg, of The Affect Theory Reader (2010)



Book Information
ISBN 9781554582587
Author Tonya K. Davidson
Format Paperback
Page Count 360
Imprint Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Publisher Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Weight(grams) 630g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 25mm