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Emotions, especially those of impoverished migrant families, have long been underrepresented in German social and cultural studies. That Sinking Feeling raises the visibility of the emotional dimensions of exclusion processes and locates students in current social transformations. Drawing from a year of ethnographic fieldwork with grade ten students, Stefan Wellgraf’s study on an array of both classic emotions and affectively charged phenomena reveals a culture of devaluation and self-assertion of the youthful, post-migrant urban underclass in neoliberal times.
Stefan Wellgraf is a Heisenberg Fellow at the Institute of European Ethnology at Humboldt University in Berlin. His research focuses on ethnographic studies of schools in low-income neighborhoods in Berlin and right-wing subcultures in East Germany.
List of Illustrations
Part I: Boredom and Beyond
Chapter 1. School in Ruins: Atmosphere of Boredom
Chapter 2. Distraction: Provocation as Critique
Part II: Forms of Self-Empowerment
Chapter 3. Coolness: Selfie Poses
Chapter 4. “Ghetto” Pride: Discourses and Practices
Part III: Feelings of Inadequacy
Chapter 5. Grading: On the Pedagogical Production of Feelings of Inferiority
Chapter 6. Ugly Feelings: Envy, Resentment and Embarrassment
Part IV: Anger and Aggressiveness
Chapter 7. Anger: Political Feelings and Patronizing Education
Chapter 8. Aggressiveness: Boxer Style
Part V: Fears and Hopes
Chapter 9. Social Anxieties: Unemployment and Deportation
Chapter 10. Cruel Optimism: The End of the Future
Bibliography