Emotions in technoscience

In recent years, the topic of emotions has been influenced by postconstructionist research, particularly by the use of performativity as a key concept. According to Judith Butler (1993, 1997) the construction of emotions is a process open to constant changes and redefinitions. The final result of the emotion-language “natural” development is what is known as Technoscience. In this realm new ways of naming emotions have emerged. In our research on the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) by Cyber-Cafés and Call Shops users, we came to understand how these technologies are significant in those users’ daily life. The emphasis will be on analyzing emotions related to the use of ICT in the aforementioned settings. Using the concept of performance (Butler, 1990), we will explore how discourse creates a need for particular emotions, which did not exist before their performance. To understand this performance, we use an ad hoc tool called Membership Categorization Analysis (MCA) as it is used by the Manchester School. Analysis has revealed a membership category in which velocity is salient as well as performance and primary emotional content constructed through language by users of ICT. This ‘velocity’, produced by discourse, seems to follow the evolution of Technoscience in Social Sciences, placed in the context created by two concepts, Donna Haraway’s (1990) cyborg and Alessandro Baricco’s (2007) mutant.