Social Justice and the Politics of Emotions ∗

Abstract

Based on research with poor young people about the empowering impact of participatory action research (PAR), this article points to the role of emotions in confirming or subverting processes of oppression. Although participatory action research increasingly recognises emotion as part of social research, I argue that PAR is still very much associated with reflection and structured representation as key to empowerment and change. There is still relatively little attention to how our ordinary, everyday emotions mediate processes of oppression or resistance, and to the importance of changing how we feel as an act of resistance.