A Methodology for the Study of Affective Policies

While interest in the study of affects grows, there is a need for methodologies that generate new analytical perspectives on subjects such as the connection between affects and policies. Reviewing the interconnections between the literature on affect and policy, I argue that methodological developments through visual ethnography can draw them closer together. I report the methods and analysis from a visual ethnographic study that sheds light on under-recognised affective characteristics of policies. This challenges the traditional exclusion of emotions and affect from the study of policy. It calls attention to the potential within drawing methods and their particular strengths for the study of affective policies and the promotion of embodied reflective qualitative methods. Methodologies that attend to affective policies can become an important resource to better understand the way that policies operate and to increase scrutiny of the impact on people’s lives.