Nations, materialities and affects

Abstract

In this paper we demonstrate how writings on affect, materiality and relationality necessitate a rethinking of theories of the nation, focusing on the intermittent emergence and flickering presence of nation-ness and national identity. In moving beyond Billig’s notion of ‘banal nationalism’, we argue that the presencing/absencing, foregrounding/backgrounding, and individualizing/collectivizing of feelings results from the differential capacities for bodies to affect or be affected and the assembling of particular configurations of bodies and materials. We demonstrate this through a discussion of how national feelings and affects have gathered around two infrastructures in Wales, the A470 road and the Severn Bridge.