Youth, Hysteresis and Social Change: Young People´s Emotions in Post-Crisis Spain

We usually speak of crisis in numbers: decline in purchasing power, rise in unemployment rates or decreasing levels of life satisfaction. But what do people feel when their supposed securities for their futures crumble? The stories of the young adults after the 2008 economic crisis in Spain provide us with answers. This book shows how their loss of future prospects led to feelings of uncertainty, anxiety, frustration and resentment, and how they dealt with these emotions. Combining the sociology of emotions with Bourdieu’s practice theory, Emotions in Crisis analyses the impact of structural changes in society on individual and collective emotions. It shows that adapting to such changes involves ’emotion work’ and highlights the different forms this work can take.

Nina Margies is Lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences at the Humboldt University of Berlin.