Anger, legitimised: Amplified anger and its rhetorics of legitimation in the 21st century (ANGLE)
Anger is often condemned as unconstructive or even anti-democratic, yet people across the world are increasingly turning towards anger as a mode of creating political connections and building cultural exchanges. ANGLE investigates how collective anger is generated, shared and legitimised within or across different communities. The project compares the legitimation, transmission and ethics of amplified anger across multiple local and global political sites to provide a vibrant research platform for studying the cross-regional, interconnected politics of anger.
The world is an increasingly angry place. Fueled by economic turmoil, conflict, climate collapse and culture wars, outbursts of collective anger are visible online, on the streets, and in various political forums. These outpourings of visible, collective ire, what we call ‘amplified anger’, have been historically condemned in mainstream public discourse as anti-democratic, uncivil attacks on human co-existence. But for the people engaged in these acts of rage, anger is often seen as a fully legitimate, necessary response to injustice, oppression or crisis. There is an urgent need to study the sources and rhetorics of legitimation that allow this amplified anger to flourish, be voiced, and spread within and across contemporary communities.
ANGLE (anger, legitimised) studies how communities that feel their anger has been delegitimised seek to perform, communicate and justify this volatile emotion. Composed of four interconnected work packages (Fury, Venom, Rage and Wrath), the project explores gendered, postcolonial, post-conversion and neo-religious iterations of anger in specific cultural sites across the globe. It uses a novel two-fold methodology: fieldwork and participant observation to access and study the localised ‘anger worlds’ of particular communities; and textual analysis to study the print mediums and online spaces where discourses of amplified anger intermingle to create wider, transnational ‘anger arenas’.
ANGLE’s analytical framework will provide critical empirical insights into the dynamics of global political action. Through the innovative concept of the ‘grammar of anger’, the project compares the legitimation, transmission and ethics of amplified anger across local and global political sites. The project advances EU’s research environment by consolidating empirically informed anger studies, building an international consortium of anger scholars, and creating a significant repertoire of knowledge on the economic, cultural and political impact of amplified anger in the 21st century.
ANGLE has four overarching aims:
- to gather much-needed empirical data on contemporary manifestations of amplified anger
- to produce an innovative grammar of anger, for analysing its communication and legitimation
- to generate new methodological insights by developing a common codebook for collecting and comparing empirical data
- to consolidate international research by creating a unique network of scholars, practitioners, and activists involved in anger studies based at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH)
These aims are structured around two cross-cutting research questions:
RQ 1) How is amplified anger mobilised, instrumentalised and communicated within and across cultures?
We will explore how collective anger is generated and shared. This will allow us to map the interconnected flows, networks and political goals of amplified anger in the 21st century.
RQ 2) What are the rhetorical discourses through which amplified anger can be legitimised?
We will analyse the rhetorics used to justify the use and urgency of amplified anger. This will allow us to study different ethical positions that rationalize the performance and cross-cultural transmission of amplified anger.
Amplified anger, i.e. visible, collective expressions of rage, has been condemned in mainstream public discourse. But for the people expressing such anger, it is often a fully legitimate, even necessary response to crises. ANGLE’s four, empirically-grounded work packages (WPs) will study how communities, who feel that their anger has been historically delegitimised by oppressive social structures, seek to perform, justify and communicate this shared affect in the contemporary era.
The WPs will study: 1) fury (male and female anger against perceived gender-based discrimination); 2) venom (postcolonial and post-imperial anger against legacies of colonial oppression); 3) rage (the anger of traditionally warring societies in the aftermath of Christian conversion); and 4) wrath (neo-religious anger against the dominant orthodoxies of patriarchal religions).
These WPs draw together diverse regional contexts in the Global North and South (India, the US, Morocco, France, Algeria, Georgia and Amazonia). ANGLE develops the innovative concept of a ‘grammar of anger’. This theoretical framework analyses the rhetorics, or persuasive political languages, used by people to perform and legitimize amplified anger. The project compiles a novel methodological ‘codebook of anger’ that compares this grammar across societies. The project’s novelty lies in the combination of a tight thematic object, amplified anger, with unprecedented contextual breadth, focusing on the global cross-fertilisation of its legitimation.
There is an urgent need for a multi-faceted understanding of amplified anger as it migrates across increasingly interconnected anger worlds. Ongoing world events testify to the importance of anger and outrage in local, regional and international political processes. ANGLE will provide critical insights into contemporary protest cultures through a five-fold strategy of dissemination and deliverables, including:
- Creating an interactive website that details activities, emerging insights, and publications – with updates
on project progress and a dedicated stream on research ethics. - Collaborating with cutting edge academic audiences and generating academic publications, including: a
monograph co-authored by the PI and the CI; an edited volume on anger methodologies; a special issue;
24 articles and book chapters (joint and sole-authored); a working paper series; and conference papers. - Communicating proactively with key stakeholders (activists, civil societies, local communities) via
feedback workshops, seminars and outreach activities. - Collaborating with the media and informing public opinion via articles, podcasts and public-facing events
(to be held in Copenhagen, Prague and India) aimed at disseminating to a wide audience. The PI and CI
will produce outputs for the general public in English, French, Danish, Bengali and Hindi. - Creating a project legacy by building an international consortium of scholars focusing on anger and its
(economic, political and cultural) transactional universe: ‘The Anger Studies Network’.
Project publications will be added below as they are published.
Dr. James Madaio, Head of South Asia Department and Research Fellow at the Oriental Institute at the Czech Academy of Sciences
Researchers
| Name | Title | Phone | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search in Name | Search in Title | Search in Phone | |
| Atreyee Sen | Associate Professor | +4535333882 | |
| Matthew Alexander Halkes Carey | Associate Professor | +4535321579 |
Funded by:
Anger, legitimised: Amplified anger and its rhetorics of legitimation in the 21st century (ANGLE) has received an ERC Advanced Grant for five years of funding from the European Research Council
Project: Anger, legitimised: Amplified anger and its rhetorics of legitimation in the 21st century (ANGLE)
Period: 2025-2030
Contact
Atreyee Sen (PI)
Associate Professor
Department of Anthropology
E-mail: Atreyee.Sen@anthro.ku.dk
Telephone: +4535333882
Matthew Carey (CI)
Associate Professor
Department of Anthropology
E-mail: matthew.carey@anthro.ku.dk
Telephone: +4535321579
External members:
| Name | Title | Phone | |
|---|---|---|---|
| James Madaio | Research Fellow | +420 266 053 729 | madaio@orient.cas.cz |