Two Experiences, One Effect
In this article I’d like to explore two other experiences; one interpersonal and one social. I’ve given these experiences the tentative names of ‘Interpersonal Distancing’ and ‘Affect Alienation’ respectively.
I’m grateful to my friend Meg Barker for suggesting the latter phrase and for directing me for further reading to Sara Ahmed’s The Promise Of Happiness, which I’ve begun but not finished reading. I hope that Ahmed will forgive me for lifting the language directly from her book!
I am beginning to believe that these experiences function together to create differences between the experience of some marginalised people and those of wider society in ways which are not fully acknowledged by existing theories of interpersonal/institutional/microaggressive discrimination. Continue reading
