Is there hope for anger? The politics of spatializing and (re)producing an emotion

Drawing on research that suggests some emotions are better at motivating certain political actions than others, I question whether hope constitutes what is Left in geography, or simply what is left over. If anger is the dominant emotional response to perceptions of injustice; if it tends, more than other emotions, to impel punitive and/or preventative demands; and if it can fortify resolve to endure in the struggle for accountability, then its displacement in favour of a politics of hope must be challenged. Making sense of emotions in a politically meaningful way demands that emotions be unpacked, categorically and historically. To that end, I trace the historiography of anger, using the concept of ‘feeling rules’ to examine why one of our primary emotions should be rendered such a politically fragile achievement – at least for some. In conclusion, I argue that scholars holding out hope for a truly progressive politics must concern themselves as much with the absence of anger as with its excess.