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What (Else) Matters? Policy Contexts, Emotional Geographies

Author

Listed:
  • John Horton

    (Centre for Children and Youth, University of Northampton, Boughton Green Road, Northampton NN2 7AL, England)

  • Peter Kraftl

    (Department of Geography, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, England)

Abstract

In this paper we reflect upon a particular, policy-oriented evaluation of a Sure Start Centre: a small element of a UK government programme addressing children's well-being in ‘deprived’ neighbourhoods. Specifically, and contra some chief social-scientific accounts, we seek to acknowledge how ‘policy’ and ‘emotion’ were inseparable in this project. We suggest that policy and media discourses, and much extant research, regarding Sure Start have been characterised by a particular apprehension of what matters , which constitutes a particular assumption about how policy interventions, in ‘deprived’ neighbourhoods and elsewhere, should be evaluated. In marked contrast we propound qualitative data wherein users of the Sure Start Centre articulated how this facility mattered to them. Our aim is not simply to reiterate a twofold truism: policy is always emotional; emotions are latently political. Rather, we consider how, in the wake of this truism, more combinative, open-minded encounters between bodies of social-scientific endeavours conventionally labelled ‘policy relevant’ vis-à -vis ‘theoretical’ might yield more careful apprehensions of the emotion and affect in policy, and the politics of emotions and affects.

Suggested Citation

  • John Horton & Peter Kraftl, 2009. "What (Else) Matters? Policy Contexts, Emotional Geographies," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 41(12), pages 2984-3002, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:41:y:2009:i:12:p:2984-3002
    DOI: 10.1068/a41362
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gavin Brown, 2007. "Mutinous Eruptions: Autonomous Spaces of Radical Queer Activism," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 39(11), pages 2685-2698, November.
    2. Eleanor Jupp, 2007. "Participation, Local Knowledge and Empowerment: Researching Public Space with Young People," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 39(12), pages 2832-2844, December.
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