Is Talking About Emotion Talking About Power?

Abstract

This review critically analyzes the edited volume Emotions, Gender, and Power, organized by Chiara Albino and Jainara Oliveira, which brings together translations of foundational texts by Catherine Lutz and Lila Abu-Lughod. The work is examined as a theoretical and political intervention in the field of the anthropology of emotions, especially in the contemporary Brazilian context, marked by the medicalization of life, the psychologization of suffering, and disputes surrounding care and mental health. The review emphasizes the conceptual shifts proposed by the authors, who understand emotion not as an internal or universal state, but as a discursive, relational, and situated practice, deeply implicated in regimes of power, gender, and social hierarchy. Finally, it argues that the work’s main merit lies in repositioning emotion as a political and anthropological problem, highlighting its effects on the production of inequalities and on contemporary modes of governing affects.