Breivik and I: affective encounters with ‘failed’ masculinity in stories about right-wing terrorism

Abstract

For feminist theory, the search for the material has often found its way via affect. As an immanent and seemingly pre-discursive and bodily experience, affects seem to offer a way out of the language and discourse trap. But should affect really be understood as solely a material matter? If every phenomenon is material-discursive, as Karen Barad suggests, cannot affect, as an immanent and lived bodily experience also be both material and discursive? In this article, I will approach these questions through a reading of a small selection of texts that tell the story of Anders Behring Breivik and the terrorist attack in Norway on 22 July 2011. In a troubling encounter with these stories, I found myself identifying with Breivik, an identification that led to an intense affective experience of anxiety and disgust, but also to an emotional self-reflexive elaboration on shame and guilt. This article presents an analysis of the prevalence of norms on white, adult masculinity in the stories about Breivik, as well as a theoretical elaboration on the relationship between affect and emotion, matter and language, and its relevance for the study of masculinity and violence.

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