Affecting, Emoting, and Feeling Disability: Entanglements at the Intersection of Disability Studies and the Sociology of Emotions

This Research Topic explores theorizing on disability and emotion as one frontier of the Sociology of Emotions as it intersects with Disability Studies. While the Sociology of Emotions has only engaged with disability in limited ways so far, emancipatory knowledge produced about disability within the broad field of Disability Studies (including fields like Mad Studies, Deaf Studies, and Critical Autism Studies) provides a rich archive of emotional first-hand accounts of feelings and affective relations such as joy, pride, shame, disgust, and fear that are often undertheorised. Importantly, the fields of Sociology of Emotions and Disability Studies understand their central topics as primarily social, cultural, political, and ecological phenomena, challenging their conceptualization as natural, individual, or as limited to the realm of the human. By bringing both fields into conversation with one another, this special issue aims to deepen our understanding of emotions, feelings, and affect related to disability.