Feeling for Justice? Rights, Laws, and Cultural Contexts

Abstract

Emotions situate actors in relationships and shape their social interactions. Culture defines both the qualities of individual identity and the constitution of social groups with distinctive values and practices. Emotions, then, are necessarily experienced and acted upon in culturally inflected forms that define not only the conventions of their articulation through individual and collective action, but also the very words that name them. This article develops theoretical arguments to support these claims and illustrates their application in a description of differing emotional repertoires, and their consequences, in Aotearoa New Zealand. The effects of resentment and shame in an ethnic politics of rights and antidiscrimination law demonstrate that context is central to a nuanced understanding of how law and emotions connect in the practicalities of enforcing the protections of anti-discrimination law.

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