Affective Citizenship and Community Engagement
Summary
Affective citizenship refers to the ways in which emotions, attachments and embodied experiences shape individuals’ sense of civic belonging and responsibility. Rather than viewing citizenship solely as a legal status or rational contract, this perspective emphasises the affective bonds that mobilise people into collective action, solidarity networks and community initiatives. Community engagement encompasses the diverse practices through which citizens participate in governance, welfare provision and neighbourhood life, from formal consultation fora to informal mutual-aid groups. Together, affective citizenship and community engagement highlight how empathy, care and shared vulnerability underpin social cohesion and political agency. In recent years, scholars have traced how affective ties operate in contexts of welfare reform, urban planning and participatory governance, revealing both the potential for inclusive solidarity and the risks of misrecognition or emotional labour exploitation. Globally, this body of work informs policies on migrant integration, relational welfare and social infrastructure design, demonstrating that successful community engagement depends as much on the cultivation of trust and recognition as on institutional frameworks. By bridging emotional dynamics and civic practice, research on affective citizenship offers a nuanced understanding of how people become and remain active participants in public life.
Research from Nature Portfolio
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Affective Citizenship and Community Engagement publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in affective citizenship and community engagement across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Affective citizenship: The framing of civic identity and participation through emotional bonds, attachments and shared experiences rather than solely legal or rational criteria.
Intimate public: A relational and spatial milieu in which affective labour and interpersonal encounters co-constitute community solidarity and welfare participation.
Micro-politics of misrecognition: Informal interactional tactics that undermine citizens’ agency by disregarding their narratives, emotions or spatial presence during participatory processes.
Social infrastructure: The physical and spatial arrangements of public and community facilities that facilitate social interaction, inclusion and collective well-being.
References
- The intimate public of relational welfare in Milan. Ethnography (2020).
- Ignoring people: The micro-politics of misrecognition in participatory governance. Environment and Planning C Politics and Space (2023).
- The Spaces of Social Services as Social Infrastructure: Insights From a Policy-Innovation Project in Milan. Urban Planning (2022).
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