Aims and scope
Abstract and Indexing
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
Testimonials
Contact us 

Aims and scope

Emotions and Society aims to publish high-quality, original peer-reviewed articles which advance theoretical and empirical understanding of emotions in social life. It is associated with the European Sociological Association's (ESA) Research Network on Sociology of Emotions (RN11), but seeks submissions from a wide range of international authors writing in this area. The sociology of emotions has developed unique perspectives on emotions that attend to their social construction and the ways in which they are embedded in social structures and inhere in social processes. The Journal seeks to expand the largely unexhausted potential for developing innovative approaches not only to emotions per se, but through them to the social generally. All methodological approaches to studying emotions are welcome, but they should demonstrate rigour and be framed in ways that will be of interest to sociologically inclined scholars.

A key feature of the Journal is to develop both a uniquely sociological perspective on emotions, while also engaging in interdisciplinary exchanges. This interdisciplinarity emerges not only from the character of present scholarly debates on emotions, but from the diversity of disciplines represented in the ESA Research Network 11. We welcome submissions from neighbouring fields, especially cultural studies, history, philosophy and social psychology. Psychology of emotions is quite well represented in existing journals and papers will be considered only insofar as their focus is interactional rather than biological. The Journal seeks to publish articles based on original research into the social aspects of emotions and emotional life. We are also interested in contributions to theoretical debates in the area and relevant substantial review articles. Principally we are looking for theoretical or theoretically informed empirical papers that engage with key concepts and debates furthering knowledge about the role of emotions in social life. We prioritize standard academic articles but are also open to receiving other pieces, for example, commentaries or interviews on highly topical issues or book review essays.
 

Abstracting and indexing

Emotions and Society is abstracted and/or indexed in:

• Scopus
• Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI)
• European Reference Index for the Humanities and Social Sciences (ERIH PLUS)

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Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

Our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion statement outlines the ways in which we seek to ensure that equity, diversity and inclusion are integral to all aspects of our publishing, and how we might encourage and drive positive change. 

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Testimonials

“As a sociologist researching emotions and emotional strategies for social justice and feminist resistance, I appreciate the intellectual space Emotions and Society provides for theoretical and empirical discussions.”

Ee Ling Sharon Quah, Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Wollongong in Australia

“Emotions and Society publishes high-quality research on emotions with a unique social perspective. It will be the reference journal for the new generation of social scientists of emotions.”

Eduardo Bericat, Professor of Sociology at the University of Seville, Spain

Contact us 

Editorial enquiries:

Editorial Assistant: Sian Carrington, emotionsandsociety.editorial@gmail.com

Editors in Chief: Mary Holmes, mary.holmes@ed.ac.uk and Åsa Wettergren, asa.wettergren@socav.gu.se

Open access, subscriptions and free trials:

Bristol University Press: bup-journals@bristol.ac.uk

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Read our instructions for authors for guidance on how to prepare your submissions. The instructions include the following: 

What are we looking for?
How to submit an article
Editorial review process
Ethical guidelines
Copyright and permissions
Style
References
Open Access
Self-archiving and institutional repositories
English language editing service
How to maximise the impact of your article
Contact us

Visit our journal author toolkit for resources and advice to support you through the publication process and beyond.

What are we looking for?

• Research articles:  Emotions and Society aims to publish high-quality, original peer-reviewed articles which advance theoretical and empirical understanding of emotions in social life. Principally we are looking for theoretical or theoretically informed empirical papers that engage with key concepts and debates of interest to sociologists of emotion, even if they do so from outside the discipline of sociology. Purely theoretical papers may be considered if they contribute to theoretical debates on the sociality of emotions. State-of-the-art review articles may also be considered. Articles should not be longer than 8,000 words and should not be published or considered for publication elsewhere at the time of submission.
   
• Book reviews: In a single book review the author reviews one chosen book. Single reviews should be between 500 and 750 words. We encourage the author to provide a succinct description of the book’s key features and to think about the questions raised by the text and the problems and issues that might be explored through a critical reading of its content. Comment on suitable audiences is also welcomed. An abstract is not required for book reviews. Book reviews are reviewed internally by the Book Reviews Editor.
   
• Review essays: We are looking for review essays that might be statements or benchmarks outlining important developments in any chosen field of work. Review essays usually take between two and four books and write comparatively about the content, often setting these books into the broader field. They should be between 2,000 and 3,000 words in length. The authors are encouraged to be thoughtful and bold in review essays and present new perspectives. Review essays can also be creative in terms of the types of texts that are combined in the review (that is to say that the links between the chosen texts need not be immediately obvious) and the authors' statements (which can be sharper than in regular research articles). Review essays undergo the double-anonymous peer review process like regular research articles. An abstract is not required for review essays.

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How to submit an article

All submissions should be made online at the Emotions and Society Editorial Manager website: https://www.editorialmanager.com/emsoc/default.aspx.

Editorial Manager

Manuscripts must be in Word or Rich Text Format, not pdf. New users should first create an account, specify their areas of interest and provide full contact details.

Preparing your anonymised manuscript

Your initial submission must consist of the following separate files:

1. A cover page including: the article title, author name(s) and affiliations (institution affiliation and country only, no department details required), the article abstract (up to 250 words), up to five key words/short phrases, and the article word count including references. A cover page template is available to download here.
2. A fully anonymised manuscript which does not include any of the information included in the cover page. It should not include any acknowledgements, funding details or conflicts of interest that would identify the author(s). References to the author's own work should be anonymised as follows: 'Author's own, [year]'. Please note that submissions that have not been sufficiently anonymised will be returned.
3. If you have any figures and tables these can be included in the manuscript on the first submission but must be uploaded as separate files at the end of the manuscript when submitting the final version. Please indicate where these should be placed in the text by inserting: ‘Figure X here’ and provide numbers, titles and sources where appropriate.  
4. In order to improve our accessibility for people with visual impairments, we are now required to ask authors to provide a brief description known as alt text to describe any visual content such as photos, illustrations or figures. It will not be visible in the article but is embedded into the images so a PDF reader can read out the descriptions. Guidance on how to write this is available here: Bristol University Press | Alt-text guidance for authors.

For help submitting an article via Editorial Manager, please view our online tutorial.

Once a submission has been conditionally accepted, you will be invited to submit a final, non-anonymised version.

A cover page including:

1. Title: short and concise running title and, if necessary, a (short) informative subtitle
2. Author names and affiliations (institution affiliation and country only, no department details required)
3. Abstract: no longer than 250 words, outlining the central question, approach/method, findings and take home message
4. Up to five keywords

The main manuscript including:

1. The non-anonymised text of your article: please ensure that the word count does not exceed the limit for your article type.
2. Funding details: list any funding including the grant numbers you have received for the research covered in your article as follows: ‘This work was supported by the [Funding Agency] under Grant [number xxxx].’
3. Conflict of interest statement: please declare any possible conflicts of interest, or state ‘The author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’ if there are none.
4. Acknowledgements: acknowledge people who have provided you with any substantial assistance or advice with collecting the data, developing your ideas, editing or any other comments to develop your argument or text.
5. Figures and tables: should be submitted as separate files. Figures should ideally be in an Encapsulated PostScript (.eps) file format. Please indicate where figures and tables should be placed in the text by inserting: ‘Figure/Table X here’ and provide numbers, titles and sources (where appropriate).
6. In order to improve our accessibility for people with visual impairments, we are now required to ask authors to provide a brief description known as alt text to describe any visual content such as photos, illustrations or figures. It will not be visible in the article but is embedded into the images so a PDF reader can read out the descriptions. Guidance on how to write this is available here: Bristol University Press | Alt-text guidance for authors.
7. Supplementary data: We recommend that any supplementary data is hosted in a data repository (such as figshare) for maximum exposure, and is cited as a reference in the article.
8. Journal Contributor Publishing Agreement: please upload a scanned copy of the completed and signed  agreement with your final non-anonymised manuscript. The Journal Contributor Publishing Agreement can be downloaded here.

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Editorial review process

All submissions are first desk-reviewed by the Editors who will assess whether the manuscript fits the aims and scope as well as the quality standards of Emotions and Society. Papers that are selected to be sent out for review will be evaluated through double anonymous peer review by at least two referees. Emotions and Society aims to return referee reviews along with an initial decision within four weeks.

Please also read our Journals Editorial Policies.

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Ethical guidelines

At Bristol University Press we are committed to upholding the highest standards of review and publication ethics in our journals. Bristol University Press is a member of and subscribes to the principles of the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE), and will take appropriate action in cases of possible misconduct in line with COPE guidance.

Find out more about our ethical guidelines.

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Copyright and permissions

Emotions and Society is published by Bristol University Press. Articles are considered for publication on the understanding that on acceptance the author(s) grant(s) Bristol University Press the exclusive right and licence to publish the article. Copyright remains with the author(s) or other original copyright owners and we will acknowledge this in the copyright line that appears on the published article.

Authors will be asked to sign a journal contributor agreement to this effect, which should be submitted online along with the final manuscript. All authors should agree to the agreement. For jointly authored articles the corresponding author may sign on behalf of co-authors provided that they have obtained the co-authors' consent. The journal contributor agreement can be downloaded here.

Where copyright is not owned by the author(s), the corresponding author is responsible for obtaining the consent of the copyright holder. This includes figures, tables and excerpts. Evidence of this permission should be provided to Bristol University Press. General information on rights and permissions can be found here.

To request permission to reproduce any part of articles published in the Emotions and Society, please email Bristol University Press: bup-info@bristol.ac.uk. For information on what is permissible use for different versions of your article please see our policy on self archiving and institutional repositories.

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Style

• British English spelling and punctuation is preferred.
• Non-discriminatory language is mandatory. Please see our guidelines to sensitive language (appendix C of document).
• Footnotes should be kept to a minimum. If it is necessary to use them, they must be numbered consecutively in the text.
• The final submitted file should be clear of track changes and ready for print.

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References

Download the Endnote output style for Policy Press and Bristol University Press journals. 

Bristol University Press uses a custom version of the Harvard system of referencing:

• In-text citations: give the author’s surname followed by year of publication in brackets.
• List all references in full at the end of the article and remove any references not cited in the text.
• Book and journal titles should be in italics.
• Website details should be placed at the end of the reference.
• Spell out all acronyms in the first instance.

Example of book reference:
Dorling, D. (2010) Injustice: Why social inequality persists, Bristol: Policy Press.

Example of journal reference:
Warin, P. (2012) 'Non-demand for Social Rights: A new challenge for social action in France', Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, 20(1): 41-53.

Example of chapter within edited / multi-authored publication:
Levitas, R. (2011) 'Utopia Calling: Eradicating child poverty in the United Kingdom and beyond', in A. Minujin and S. Nandy (eds), Global Child Poverty and Well-being: Measurement, concepts, policy and action, Bristol, Policy Press. pp. 449-73.

Example of website reference:
Womensaid (2016) What is domestic abuse? https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-domestic-abuse/.

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Editorial Management Board

Mary Holmes, Editor in Chief, University of Edinburgh, UK
Åsa Wettergren, Editor in Chief, Gothenburg University, Sweden
Nathan Manning, Co-Editor, University of Adelaide, Australia
Maja Sawicka, Book Reviews Editor & Chair of Board, Warsaw University, Poland
Stina Bergman Blix, Uppsala University, Sweden

Julie Brownlie, University of Edinburgh, UK
Ian Burkitt, University of Bradford, UK
Jessica L. Collett, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
Nicholas Demertzis, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
Jonathan Heaney, Queens University, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Quah Ee Ling, Western Sydney University, Australia
Adrian Scribano, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina 
Lisa Slattery Walker, University of North Carolina, USA

Editorial Advisory Board

Erik Andersson, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Susan Bandes, DePaul College of Law, USA
Jack Barbalet, Australian Catholic University, Australia
Ashley Barnwell, The University of Melbourne, Australia
Tova Benski, The College of Management Academic Studies, Israel
Mabel Berezin, Cornell University, USA
Natàlia Cantó Milà, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain
Carl Cassegård, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Jody Clay-Warner, University of Georgia, USA
Helena Flam, Leipzig University, Germany
Ute Frevert, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Germany
Benno Gammerl, Goldsmiths / Max Planck Institute for Human Development, UK / Germany
Deborah Gould, University of California - Santa Cruz, USA
Arlie Hochschild, University of California - Berkeley, USA
Eva Illouz, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, France
Kerstin Jacobsson, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Jack Katz, University of California Los Angeles, USA
Nichola Khan, University of Brighton, UK
Debra King, Flinders University, Australia
Jordan McKenzie, University of Wollongong, Australia
Rebecca Olson, University of Queensland, Australia
Roger Patulny, University of Wollongong, Australia
Mikko Salmela, University of Helsinki, Finland
Adrián Scribano, CIECS CONICET UNC/ UBA /CIES, Argentina
Monique Scheer, Universität Tübingen, Germany
Barbara Sieben, Helmut Schmidt Universität, Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg, Germany
Peter Stearns, George Mason University, USA
Christian von Scheve, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany 
Guobin Yang, University of Pennsylvania, USA

Emotions, the Rich and the Poor: Affective hierarchies, boundaries and distinctions in class relations and social structure

Special issue of Emotions & Society: Call for papers

Abstract submission deadline: 01 December 2023

Guest Editors: Nina Margies (Humboldt University of Berlin) and Elgen Sauerborn (Free University of Berlin)

Background to the call:

In recent years, the interplay between emotions and social class has received recurrent attention. Scholars from various disciplines have primarily investigated the impact of class structures and inequalities on individual and collective feelings and emotions. Research addressing questions such as how class feels and how affects shape class relations (Emery, Powell & Crookes 2023; Skeggs 2012) as well as the effect of social mobility and class shifts on emotional states (Born 2023; Friedman 2016; Jaquet 2018), enhance our comprehension of economic and social disparities and their association with psychological states and mental health.

Social, economic and ecological crises such as climate change or the current inflation intensify social inequalities, which in turn leads to a shift in class boundaries and a reconfiguration of social hierarchies. Many groups are pushed into poverty or the lower class, who never perceived themselves as being at risk of poverty. At the same time, the ultra-wealthy exacerbate existing crises (Chancel 2022; Neckel 2023), and affluent individuals seek to distinguish themselves from ostentatious wealth through new cultural and habitus practices (Friedman & Reeves 2020; Prieur & Savage 2013; Sherman 2018). This leads to new forms of distinction within both the rich and the poor, which involve emotional practices as well as affective meanings and relations. Recognizing the critical importance of emotions and affects in creating social distinction, questions arise about how they operate as tools for forming hierarchies and class boundaries within emerging rearrangements of established classes. Moreover, it prompts an exploration of how emotions or affects are used to either maintain an individual's class identity or, alternatively, to separate oneself from it.

In this special issue, our aim is to redirect the emphasis away from individual emotional states. Instead, we welcome contributions that scrutinize the practical, organizing, and segregating functions of emotions, including collective emotions and affects. The special issue aims to contribute to the exploration of how emotions and affective relations serve to separate or connect social classes and stratification. We are particularly interested in understanding how social closure and opening processes relate to emotions and the emotional or affective practices, techniques, and strategies employed to preserve or challenge class boundaries and orders.

We are interested in predominantly empirical but also theoretical contributions that explore, among other things, the following questions:

• What functions do emotions and affects have in processes of social closure and opening?
• How do emotions solidify class structures, and how do they loosen or open them and how do individuals employ emotions to assert and preserve social distinctions?
• What role do collective emotions and affects play in processes of maintaining and reproducing social and economic inequality?
• What is the relationship between emotions and money, wealth and capital, or their absence?
• What are class-based differences in emotion norms, rules, and values, or affective regimes?
• How do manifestations of class-based stigmatization interact with emotions and emotional stereotypes?
• Which institutions and actors contribute to the establishment of class-specific emotional norms?
• How are emotional deviance associated with class affiliation?
• What role do emotions and affects play in the intersection of class and other aspects of social inequality, such as gender, race, or nationality?
• What role do affective phenomena such as atmospheres and moods play in social inequality and class differences?

Information for contributors 

If you are interested in this call, please submit your abstract  (200-300 words) no later than 01 Dec 2023 to the Guest Editors Nina Margies (nina.margies@sowi.hu-berlin.de) and Elgen Sauerborn (elgen.sauerborn@fu-berlin.de).

We will inform authors by mid-January whether we would like them to submit a full paper. Full papers will be due for submission by 15 June 2024 and will undergo the journal’s standard double-anonymous peer review process.

Please see our instructions for authors for guidance on preparing your submission. 

Timeline

• 01 December 2023: Deadline for submitting abstracts to Guest Editors
• Mid-January 2024: Feedback and decision on the acceptance of proposals
• 15 June 2024: Deadline for submitting full draft papers for review
• November 2025: Publication of the special issue

Literature

Born, A.M. (2023) ‘The price of the ticket revised: Family members’ experiences of upward social mobility’, The Sociological Review, 0(0)

Chancel, L. (2022) ‘Global carbon inequality over 1990–2019’, Nature Sustainability, 5: 931–938.

Emery, J., Powell, R. &  Crookes, L. (2023) ‘Class, affect, margins’, The Sociological Review, 71(2): 283–295.

Friedman, S. & Reeves, A. (2020) ‘From Aristocratic to Ordinary: Shifting Modes of Elite Distinction’, American Sociological Review, 85(2):. 323–350.

Neckel, S. (2023) Zerstörerischer Reichtum. Wie eine globale Verschmutzer-Elite das Klima ruiniert‘, Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik, 68(4): 47-56.

Prieur, A. &Savage, M. (2013) ‘Emerging Forms of Cultural Capital’,  European Societies, 15(2): 246–267.

Sherman, R. (2018) ‘‘A very expensive ordinary life’: consumption, symbolic boundaries and moral legitimacy among New York elites’,  Socio-Economic Review, 16(2): 411–433.

Skeggs, B. (2012) ‘Feeling Class: Affect and Culture in the Making of Class Relations’, in: G. Ritzer (ed.), The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Sociology, Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 269–286.

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