[...]he picture or rub their cheeks against it and to roll themselves in the first before it


Leys's shame =/= guilt
guilt:
1. mimetic: victim identifies with the aggressor + accepts the situation by not distinguishing belief =/= behavior }--> *guilt*
2. antimimetic: victim identifies with fellow victims + might imitate the aggressor only as a survival mechanism ==> preserve a sense of self + keep the atrocities external to herself ==> ‘victim =/= perpetrator’ that can be held in memory without losing one's sense of self and victimhood }--> (awareness of being observed by others in one's abject state of victimhood ==>) *shame*

Leys --> (problem of shift from guilt to) shame: deprives one from agency and responsibility


=/= muslim-majority society (use of shame in critical ways)


**performative ~=/& constructed nature of emotions**

-in my youth in iran (middle class) the context of singing together آواز in small gatherings was a context of expressing emotions within groups (a form of *networked living*) that give voice to specific emotion (grief, sadness, love, heartache, etc.)
[i always felt outside of it]

public expression of feelings --associate--> weakness & sexuality
==> everyday life denial of emotions (of jealousy, desire, heartache)

(sociologically)
*something is performed = something cannot be addressed informally* }<-- for example emotions


sharm
sharmamdegi
haya
aberu
gheirat
nang
namus
--> emotion words for honor and shame (shared between pakistan and iran, used with meanings that overlap and inconsistent)

honor selfsubsistent male
honor related to women
notions of virtue
notions of shyness

gheirat غیرت : an emotional alarm system [for one's personal image (aberu آبرو), family, religion, country]
gheirat specifies one's appropriate reactions to the particular acts of the other --> in the form of emotions: anger, hatred, jealousy


(Elias’ problematic and useful definition of) [*]affect: perceivable measurable describable effect of emotional events and experiences, what is felt + what is emoted at an individual and collective level, (enacted + perceived) ‘happening’ of the human experience (=/= undefined protoevent)
affect: a way in which one knows an experience is occurring + a way in which one reacts to an experience ==shape==> future human experience

1. enactment (performativity) of emotion is inseparable from its experience
2. emotions, enjoying words, emotion events cannot be comprehended apart from the sociopolitical context in which they occur (emotion act ~/?= emotion evoked)

somatic activity (crying) ==make==> emotions (sadness)

(in islam) happiness <--> virtue
(robust genre of literature) marvels and bestiary --> wonder at natural & manufactured wonders of the world (pyramids ~= mortality) “==encourage==>” contemplation of God's creative powers

(in sufism) tension between good and bad feelings (ugly, outlaw emotions...) ==> progress (spiritual advancement)
--> (sufi) scandalous behavior: performative form of cultivating negative emotions in oneself and others

emotional regime
ecological phenomenology
emotional habitus

habitus = [*]mood: collective feeling --Bourdieu--> *making and using moods have to be integral part of (the goal of) any sociopolitical process* (@Foad, @Sina)
(**collective action if impossible if people are not in the mood**)


*educational material (~= ideological material) : integrated attitude toward the world*

regulatory forces of society construct (=/= control) behavior
[two feelings: you are *constructed* but still might find yourself with agency =/= you are original (essential, special) and might find yourself *controlled* by forces of society <-- bad idea for political engagement]

**politics --> a sphere that is deeply imbricated in the visual regimes of societies** (--> for me that is why visual arts are so important: politics is always visual)
**politics --> affect can explain the processes that are inexplicable through other functional explanations + affect exists as an object of power (political formations are reactive to and formed by affect)


(Naveeda Khan)

Jinns and children

a place for a child to build conviviality / continuity with a creature made of smokeless fire

(the girl) she charts through a modality of “hearing”

..that which defines the normative, the duties, and responsibilities that accompany observance of a religious tradition.

different intensities by which the normative is reiterated

Jinns are also known to eavesdrop (esteragh-e sam’) on the angels in the lower reaches of heaven to acquire limited knowledge of the future

the little mischievous spirits (nafs) that make up a self



**wonders of children

children are born free of sin and have the ability to communicate without reason (aghl) and therefore carry the threat of being easily led astray


8 year-old Maryam, channeling communication between the jinn and her family
a time that she would look into the palms of her hand (to see what the jinn would have her see)
she instructed the jinn that he could enter her father's body, with his permission, jinn wanted to taste human food

her father and brothers would listen carefully to her descriptions
(authoritative figure of the father becomes the pupil of his little daughter hearing her words of advice)--alterity



“in the middle east, the child is seen as the crucial generational link in the family unit, the key to its continuation, the living person that ties the present to the past and to the future” (Ferena 1005)

“in the indian case ...the child is seen as already being full person in domains to which the mother does not have access” (Veena Das 1989)


...healer or magician may utilize a child to bring into presence or communicate with the spiritual being
(***the presence of child in Ma'rekeh-Giri معرکه گیری?***)

...................................

ecstatic identifications with...


one could legitimately dream of the prophet, but one could never call him forth
both these paths escape jinn, having a dynamic if disruptive presence within human world, alongside the presence of angels and saints

there can be no other experience of the prophet other than through the record of his words and deeds??!!!



the daily struggle to presence the prophet


علما olama =/= بچه bache
face-to-face =/= via-jinn

face-to-face learning from the olama (the authoritative transmitters) versus a faceless and voiceless jinn with his child serving as its ventriloquist (arusak gardan)

activating competing bodies of knowledge and sets of relations
(in the hope that one of them will pay off)


insistence on a modicum [minimum amount] of consistency

...................................

...enmeshed within a certain unintentional malevolence existing alongside generosity.
-malevolence is something that holds out the possibility of harm rather than actively intending it
-generosity is the willingness to concede to others rather than a nobility of character


(also the dilemma of introducing the jinn to your child)
“exposing” his children to their disruptive yet generative powers


‘exposure of children to evil’
the innate resource of children
(for Zezru) the children are pure, they represent non-evil. they belong to shades. their innocence does not imply a state of passivity.


what regions of experience and expression the child has access to?

innate resources of children
Reynolds
children’s own resources are bolstered by the protection afforded by living and dead kin
a parent (or guardian), cannot know in advance what regions of experience and expression the child has access to or what he or she is capable of

in Islam: children are considered to have a certain strength and prescience that makes them effective as conduits to the world of spirits =/= innocent creatures to be protected
•children are free of religious obli[...]