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“Affective methods are not simply about registering feelings or emotions, but about attuning to the intensities, resonances, and atmospheres that move through and between bodies, spaces, and things, shaping what becomes possible in research encounters.” — Blackman & Venn, 2010, p. 8
Affective method refers to a set of research sensibilities and practices oriented toward the detection, tracing, and amplification of affective forces as they circulate within and across assemblages. In postqualitative, new materialist, and posthumanist research, affective method is not a fixed protocol or a set of steps, but a mode of attunement to the more-than-human, pre-personal, and transindividual intensities that shape experience, knowledge, and becoming. Rather than seeking to represent or categorize emotions, affective method foregrounds the atmospheric, the felt, the emergent, and the relational, attending to how affect moves, sticks, and transforms within research events (Blackman & Venn, 2010; Gregg & Seigworth, 2010; Stewart, 2007).
Affective method is deeply entangled with the ontological and epistemological commitments of postqualitative inquiry. It resists the reduction of affect to individual psychology or subjective feeling, instead conceptualizing affect as a force that traverses bodies, technologies, discourses, and environments. This approach foregrounds the “eventness” of research, emphasizing the generative, processual, and situated nature of knowledge production (St. Pierre, 2019; MacLure, 2013). In practice, affective method involves cultivating a sensitivity to the atmospheres, rhythms, and intensities that shape research encounters, often through embodied, sensory, and creative practices that exceed traditional data collection and analysis.
Key Literature and Scholars
The development of affective method is closely linked to the “affective turn” in the humanities and social sciences (Clough & Halley, 2007; Gregg & Seigworth, 2010). Foundational work by Brian Massumi (2002), Kathleen Stewart (2007), and Sara Ahmed (2004) has been instrumental in theorizing affect as a force that exceeds and precedes emotion, language, and representation. In postqualitative and new materialist research, scholars such as Maggie MacLure (2013, 2021), Elizabeth Adams St. Pierre (2019), Bronwyn Davies (2014), and Lisa Blackman (2012) have advanced affective methodologies that foreground the entanglement of bodies, matter, and meaning.
Recent glossaries and handbooks (e.g., Somerville et al., 2023; Taylor & Bayley, 2019) emphasize that affective method is not a singular approach but a constellation of practices—ranging from “data events” (MacLure, 2013) to “affective attunement” (Blackman & Venn, 2010) and “sensory ethnography” (Pink, 2015)—that seek to register the more-than-human vibrancy of research worlds. These approaches often draw on Deleuzian, Baradian, and Spinozist philosophies, foregrounding the processual, relational, and material dimensions of affect.
Relevance to Research Questions
Affective method is particularly salient for research that seeks to understand how higher education instructors experience and make sense of their evolving relationship with Large Language Models (LLMs) in pedagogical practice. The research questions foreground lived, emotional, and embodied dimensions of engagement with AI, as well as the reconfiguration of beliefs, practices, and artifacts within complex assemblages.
Affective method enables the research to move beyond self-report and discourse, attuning to the intensities, atmospheres, and resonances that emerge in the entanglement of instructors, students, and AI technologies. For example, rather than simply asking instructors how they feel about AI, affective method might involve attending to the “charge” in a faculty meeting, the collective unease or excitement in a workshop, or the subtle shifts in classroom atmosphere as AI tools are introduced. It foregrounds the ways in which anxiety, anticipation, and curiosity circulate within the assemblage, shaping what becomes possible in pedagogical practice.
This approach is also attuned to the cyborgification of the writer and the text, tracing how affective forces move through and are amplified by technological interfaces, institutional discourses, and material artifacts. Affective method thus provides a way to register the emergent, distributed, and more-than-human dimensions of pedagogical change, offering a nuanced account of how new practices, interactions, and artifacts come into being.
Connections to Other Concepts
Affective method is deeply entangled with affect (Expanded), as it operationalizes the theoretical insights of affect theory within research practice. It is closely linked to assemblage and entanglement, as it brings forth the relational, processual, and distributed nature of affective forces. The method resonates with intra-action (Barad, 2007), emphasizing that affect emerges through the ongoing entanglement of bodies, technologies, and discourses, rather than residing within discrete entities.
Affective method also intersects with atmosphere, Resonance, and attunement, as it involves cultivating a sensitivity to the more-than-human vibrancy of research worlds. It challenges traditional notions of Data, Objectivity, and Analysis, instead foregrounding the generative, performative, and situated nature of knowledge production in postqualitative inquiry.
Methodological Implications and Research Considerations
Affective method demands a rethinking of research instruments, terminology, and practices. In postqualitative research, the language of “data collection” is often replaced by “data events” or “encounters,” emphasizing the emergent, processual, and co-constitutive nature of research worlds (MacLure, 2013; St. Pierre, 2019). The researcher is not a detached observer but an active participant, whose own affective responses become part of the inquiry.
Traditional instruments such as interviews and surveys may be supplemented or replaced by embodied, sensory, and creative practices—such as fieldnotes on atmosphere, sensory mapping, poetic transcription, and collaborative writing—that seek to register the affective intensities of research encounters. Analysis is understood as a process of “plugging in” (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012), tracing connections, resonances, and ruptures, rather than coding or categorizing data.
Affective method also foregrounds the ethical and political dimensions of research, emphasizing the need for attunement, care, and responsibility in engaging with the affective lives of participants, technologies, and environments. It invites researchers to remain open to surprise, discomfort, and transformation, embracing the generative potential of affective encounters.
Example from the Field
In a study of instructors’ engagement with AI writing tools, an affective method might involve spending time in faculty workshops, not only recording what is said but also attending to the collective mood, the bodily postures, the silences, and the moments of laughter or tension. The researcher might keep a sensory diary, noting the “atmosphere” of the room as new technologies are introduced, or use creative writing to evoke the affective charge of a particular encounter. These practices enable the research to register the more-than-human vibrancy of pedagogical change, foregrounding the distributed, emergent, and affective dimensions of the instructor-AI-student assemblage.
Cautions and Limitations
Affective method is not without critique. Some scholars caution that the emphasis on affect can risk becoming vague or overly poetic, losing sight of material and political realities (Hemmings, 2005; Wetherell, 2012). Others warn against the romanticization of affect as inherently subversive or emancipatory, noting that affective forces can also reinforce exclusion, hierarchy, and violence (Ahmed, 2004; Blackman, 2012). Methodologically, affective method demands a high degree of reflexivity, openness, and care, as the boundaries between researcher and researched, data and analysis, are continually in flux.
References
Ahmed, S. (2004). The cultural politics of emotion. Routledge.
Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Duke University Press.
Blackman, L. (2012). Immaterial bodies: Affect, embodiment, mediation. SAGE.
Blackman, L., & Venn, C. (2010). Affect. Body & Society, 16(1), 7–28. https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X09354769
Clough, P. T., & Halley, J. (Eds.). (2007). The affective turn: Theorizing the social. Duke University Press.
Gregg, M., & Seigworth, G. J. (Eds.). (2010). The affect theory reader. Duke University Press.
Hemmings, C. (2005). Invoking affect: Cultural theory and the ontological turn. Cultural Studies, 19(5), 548–567. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380500365473
Jackson, A. Y., & Mazzei, L. A. (2012). Thinking with theory in qualitative research: Viewing data across multiple perspectives. Routledge.
MacLure, M. (2013). Researching without representation? Language and materiality in post-qualitative methodology. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 26(6), 658–667. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2013.788755
MacLure, M. (2021). The wonder of data. In S. R. Steinberg & G. Cannella (Eds.), Critical qualitative inquiry (pp. 123–140). Peter Lang.
Pink, S. (2015). Doing sensory ethnography (2nd ed.). SAGE.
Somerville, M., Gale, K., & Davies, B. (2023). A glossary for doing postqualitative new materialist and critical posthumanist research across disciplines. Routledge.
Stewart, K. (2007). Ordinary affects. Duke University Press.
St. Pierre, E. A. (2019). Post qualitative inquiry: The critique and the coming after. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (5th ed., pp. 611–625). SAGE.
Taylor, C. A., & Bayley, A. (Eds.). (2019). Posthumanism and higher education: Reimagining pedagogy, practice and research. Palgrave Macmillan.
Wetherell, M. (2012). Affect and emotion: A new social science understanding. SAGE.
Affective Method “Affect is found in those intensities that pass body to body (human, nonhuman, part-body and otherwise), in those resonances that circulate about, between, and sometimes stick to bodies and worlds, and in the very passages or variations between these intensities and resonances themselves.” — Gregg M. Seigworth & Melissa Gregg, 2010, p. 1 Definition Affective Method refers to a research orientation and set of practices that foreground the role of affect—intensities, resonances, and bodily forces—in the production of knowledge, subjectivity, and social worlds. In postqualitative, new materialist, and posthumanist research, affective method is not a fixed protocol but a mode of attunement and responsiveness to the more-than-human, pre-cognitive, and transindividual forces that shape research encounters. It is a way of working with the “energetics of the encounter” (Stewart, 2007), tracing how affect moves through, animates, and transforms assemblages of bodies, technologies, texts, and environments. Affective method resists the reduction of research to the collection and analysis of verbal or cognitive data alone. Instead, it seeks to register and evoke the atmospheres, intensities, and emergent feelings that are often unspoken, fleeting, or difficult to capture through traditional qualitative methods. This approach is deeply entangled with the “affective turn” in the humanities and social sciences, which has shifted attention from meaning and representation to the forces and capacities that circulate within and between bodies (Clough & Halley, 2007; Gregg & Seigworth, 2010). In postqualitative inquiry, affective method is inseparable from the researcher’s own embodied presence and responsiveness. The researcher becomes a sensorium, attuned to the affective flows and atmospheres of the research assemblage. Writing, too, becomes an affective practice—one that seeks to evoke, rather than simply describe, the intensities of the field (MacLure, 2013; Stewart, 2007). This method is generative, experimental, and open-ended, often involving creative forms of data production, such as fieldnotes on mood and atmosphere, poetic or evocative writing, and the use of visual, sonic, or material artifacts. Key Literature and Scholars The development of affective method is closely tied to the “affective turn” in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, marked by the work of scholars such as Brian Massumi, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Kathleen Stewart, Melissa Gregg, and Sara Ahmed. Massumi’s distinction between affect and emotion (2002) has been foundational, as has Stewart’s ethnographic attention to “ordinary affects” (2007). The “Affect Theory Reader” (Gregg & Seigworth, 2010) is a landmark collection that maps the field’s diversity and complexity. In postqualitative and new materialist research, affective method is further developed by scholars like Maggie MacLure, who explores “wonder” and the affective dimensions of data (2013), and Bronwyn Davies, who situates affect within entangled, more-than-human assemblages (Davies et al., 2013). The glossaries you provided (e.g., Somerville et al., 2020; Taylor & Hughes, 2016) emphasize the methodological implications of affect, highlighting its role in disrupting representational logics and opening research to the vitality of matter, sensation, and relation. Debates within the field include questions about the accessibility of affect to research, the risks of romanticizing or universalizing affective experience, and the challenge of writing affect without reducing it to representation (Blackman & Venn, 2010; Wetherell, 2012). Relevance to Research Questions Affective method is deeply entangled with the research questions at the heart of this project, which seek to understand how higher education instructors experience and make sense of their evolving relationship with Large Language Models (LLMs) in pedagogical practice. This method enables the research to move beyond what instructors say about AI, toward an attunement to the lived, emotional, and embodied dimensions of their engagement. It foregrounds the atmospheres of anxiety, excitement, uncertainty, and possibility that circulate in classrooms, staff meetings, and digital interfaces. By tracing affect, the research can illuminate how core beliefs about authorship, creativity, and learning are not only articulated but also felt, sensed, and negotiated in the body. Affective method allows for the exploration of how new pedagogical practices and artifacts emerge from the interplay of instructors, students, and AI technologies—not just as rational responses, but as affective events that reconfigure what teaching and learning can become. The cyborgification of the writer and the text, for example, is not only a conceptual shift but an affective one, experienced as a sense of loss, excitement, or ambivalence that moves through the assemblage. Connections to Other Concepts Affective method is closely linked to affect, but also to intra-action, assemblage, entanglement, and atmosphere. It is through intra-action (Barad, 2007) that affect emerges and circulates within assemblages of human and nonhuman actors. The method is attuned to the ways in which affective forces shape and are shaped by the entanglement of bodies, technologies, and discourses. It resonates with the concept of atmosphere (Anderson, 2009; Stewart, 2011), which describes the collective, emergent mood or tone of a space or event. Affective method also intersects with posthuman ethics, as it demands a responsiveness to the capacities and vulnerabilities of all bodies in the assemblage, human and nonhuman alike. Methodological Implications Affective method challenges the boundaries of data, analysis, and writing. It invites the researcher to experiment with forms of data production that register the fleeting, the atmospheric, and the more-than-human. This might include fieldnotes on the “feel” of a classroom, the affective charge of a policy document, or the mood of a digital interface. Analysis becomes a process of attunement and evocation, rather than coding and categorization. Writing is approached as a performative act that seeks to move, affect, and involve the reader, rather than simply inform. Example from the Field In a faculty workshop on AI in writing pedagogy, the affective method might involve attending to the nervous laughter, the shifting postures, the silences that fall when certain topics are raised, and the palpable tension or excitement in the room. These affective cues are not “data” in the traditional sense, but they are crucial for understanding how AI is being lived, negotiated, and made meaningful in practice. The method might also involve reflecting on the researcher’s own affective responses—moments of discomfort, curiosity, or wonder—as part of the assemblage. Critiques and Limitations Affective method has been critiqued for its potential vagueness and for the difficulty of rigorously articulating and evidencing affective phenomena (Wetherell, 2012). Some scholars caution against the tendency to treat affect as ineffable or universally accessible, noting that affective experience is always mediated by history, culture, and power (Hemmings, 2005; Blackman, 2012). There is also debate about the ethics of representing others’ affective states, and about the risks of privileging the researcher’s own sensations or intuitions. References Ahmed, S. (2004). The cultural politics of emotion. Routledge. Anderson, B. (2009). Affective atmospheres. Emotion, Space and Society, 2(2), 77–81. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2009.08.005 Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Duke University Press. Blackman, L. (2012). Immaterial bodies: Affect, embodiment, mediation. Sage. Blackman, L., & Venn, C. (2010). Affect. Body & Society, 16(1), 7–28. https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X09354769 Clough, P. T., & Halley, J. (Eds.). (2007). The affective turn: Theorizing the social. Duke University Press. Davies, B., et al. (2013). Intra-active entanglements: An interview with Karen Barad. Learning, Media and Technology, 38(2), 161–170. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2013.797395 Gregg, M., & Seigworth, G. J. (Eds.). (2010). The affect theory reader. Duke University Press. Hemmings, C. (2005). Invoking affect: Cultural theory and the ontological turn. Cultural Studies, 19(5), 548–567. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380500365473 MacLure, M. (2013). Researching without representation? Language and materiality in post-qualitative methodology. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 26(6), 658–667. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2013.788755 Massumi, B. (2002). Parables for the virtual: Movement, affect, sensation. Duke University Press. Seigworth, G. J., & Gregg, M. (2010). An inventory of shimmers. In M. Gregg & G. J. Seigworth (Eds.), The affect theory reader (pp. 1–25). Duke University Press. Somerville, M., et al. (2020). A glossary for doing postqualitative new materialist and critical posthumanist research across disciplines. Common Ground Research Networks. Stewart, K. (2007). Ordinary affects. Duke University Press. Stewart, K. (2011). Atmospheric attunements. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 29(3), 445–453. https://doi.org/10.1068/d9109 Taylor, C. A., & Hughes, C. (2016). Posthuman research practices in education. Palgrave Macmillan. Wetherell, M. (2012). Affect and emotion: A new social science understanding. Sage.
*** affective Method (Expanded) Core Definition: An affective method is not a pre-defined toolkit or a set of procedural steps, but rather a research sensibility or an orientation of attunement. It is a way of doing research that seeks to register and trace the circulation of affect (Expanded) within a given field. It prioritizes paying attention to the intensities, forces, and atmospheres that are generated when bodies (both human and non-human) come together. This approach moves away from methodologies that aim to uncover subjective meaning or represent a stable reality. Instead, it focuses on describing the composition of an event and what that event produces (Stewart, 2007). It asks: What forces are at play here? What capacities for action are being opened up or closed down? Methodological Stance: Attunement over Interpretation: The goal is not to interpret what an event means, but to become attuned to its affective tonalities. This involves a deep immersion and a practice of noticing the mundane, the visceral, and the atmospheric details that often go overlooked. Following and Mapping: An affective method “follows” the connections and blockages in an affective economy (Ahmed, 2004). It traces how affects stick to certain objects, bodies, or ideas (like Generative AI) and how they move through an assemblage. The research itself becomes an act of mapping these affective currents. The Researcher’s Body as a Register: This methodology acknowledges that the researcher is part of the affective field being studied. The researcher’s own bodily responses—a sense of unease, a feeling of excitement, a moment of confusion—are not seen as subjective biases to be eliminated, but as valuable data points registering the affective intensities of the encounter. This resonates with a Post-qualitative Inquiry stance where the researcher is always already entangled with the phenomenon of study. Connection to the Research Questions, assemblage, and entanglement: An affective method provides a direct way to investigate the research questions without falling back into humanist assumptions. For instance, when exploring anxieties around Generative AI, this approach shifts the focus from an instructor’s individual psychology to the broader assemblage that produces an atmosphere of anxiety. It asks: How does the intra-action of institutional emails, media headlines, the AI’s user interface, and student inquiries compose an affective field of pressure and uncertainty? The method involves describing this assemblage in detail to show how anxiety emerges as a distributed, atmospheric property of the situation, not a private feeling inside someone’s head. This approach is perfectly suited for exploring entanglement. It allows the research to trace how an instructor is not a separate, rational agent acting upon technology, but is deeply entangled within a pedagogical assemblage. Their choices, hesitations, and pedagogical experiments are seen as emergent properties of this entanglement. The method would focus on describing moments of intra-action: a teacher modifying a lesson plan while interacting with the AI’s output, a student’s question that changes the affective dynamic of the room, a policy document that constrains pedagogical possibility. It is in these moments that the entanglement becomes palpable. In Practice: This could involve ethnographic observation that pays close attention to the material environment and bodily comportment. It could involve analyzing documents (e.g., syllabi, policy statements, blog posts) not just for their semantic content, but for their affective charge—the way they attempt to manage, provoke, or soothe. It means writing descriptively and evocatively, in a way that performs the affective atmosphere for the reader, rather than simply reporting on it from a distance (Stewart, 2007).
Bibliography Ahmed, S. (2004). The cultural politics of emotion. Routledge. Stewart, K. (2007). Ordinary affects. Duke University Press.
affective Method (Expanded) Core Definition: An Affective Method is not a prescriptive set of procedures but a methodological orientation or sensibility for conducting research. It is an approach that seeks to attune to and trace the circulation of affect (Expanded) within a research context. Rather than focusing solely on what people say or think, it pays attention to the visceral, non-linguistic, and atmospheric forces that move and shape bodies, relations, and events. It is a way of “staying with the trouble” (Haraway, 2016) by becoming sensitive to the intensities that constitute a situation.
Relationship to affect (Expanded):
If affect (Expanded) is the theoretical concept describing pre-personal intensity, Affective Method is the practical, scholarly attempt to engage with that intensity. It is the “how” that follows from the “what.” The goal is not to “measure” affect, which would be to capture and kill it, but to follow its paths, resonances, and effects. The researcher’s own body is understood as a primary instrument of research—a resonating body that is itself affected by the field of inquiry.
Key Practices and Sensibilities:
Attunement to Intensity: This involves a heightened awareness of the non-representational. It means paying attention to the rhythm of a conversation, the feeling of a room, the postures of bodies, the moments of hesitation or excitement. It is a focus on the “energetics of the encounter” (Stewart, 2007). Following the “Stickiness”: Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s (2004) work, this practice involves tracing how affects are not free-floating but attach themselves to certain objects, bodies, or words. In the context of this research, it would mean asking: Where does the anxiety about Generative AI “stick”? Does it stick to the term “plagiarism,” to the bodies of students, to the interface of the software itself? Describing Affective Atmospheres: This involves writing ethnographically about the collective, shared mood or tone of a space or event—the “vibe” of a faculty workshop on AI, for instance. Kathleen Stewart (2007) calls this a focus on “ordinary affects,” the subtle but powerful forces that compose everyday life.
Connection to the Research Questions, Assemblages, and Entanglements:
An Affective Method is uniquely suited to exploring the research questions because it provides a way to study anxiety and narrative beyond individual psychology or discourse analysis. It allows the inquiry to address the force of these phenomena. For studying Assemblages: The research conceives of the educational context as a complex assemblage of human and non-human actors (instructors, students, AI, policy documents, classroom spaces). An Affective Method does not try to isolate these parts. Instead, it approaches the entire entanglement as a singular, affect-generating machine. It asks: What intensities is this assemblage producing? How does the introduction of Generative AI change the affective dynamics of the pedagogical assemblage? For studying Anxiety: Rather than asking an instructor “How do you feel about AI?” (a question about Emotion), an Affective Method would attune to how the collective, circulating affect (Expanded) of anxiety is materially present. It might be registered in institutional emails, in the tone of media articles, in the slump of a teacher’s shoulders. The method allows the research to treat anxiety not as a private feeling about an external object, but as a productive force that is part of the entanglement itself.
Methodological Implications for the Work:
This orientation suggests that data is not just interview transcripts or survey results. Data can also be field notes on atmosphere, descriptions of bodily comportment, collections of media objects that seem charged with intensity, and the researcher’s own affective responses.
It pushes the research to produce writing that evokes the affective scene rather than simply analyzing it from a distance. The goal is to bring the reader into the affective world of the inquiry.
Bibliography Ahmed, S. (2004). The cultural politics of emotion. Routledge.
Gregg, M., & Seigworth, G. J. (Eds.). (2010). The affect theory reader. Duke University Press.
Haraway, D. J. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.
Stewart, K. (2007). Ordinary affects. Duke University Press.