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This essay describes the analytical frameworks that affect studies has propagated that will be especially helpful for the scholar/artist invested in social justice issues to learn about as they critically think and create. Given that affect theory and the study of emotions are vast fields, full of competing and conflicting ideas, I have narrowed down my discussion to the contribution of feminist and queer (of colour) scholarship. This body of thought addresses affect in light of racial injustice, class and gender inequalities, climate justice, the rights of migrants and refugees, the discrimination of LGBTQ+ people, ageism and ableism. These pressing challenges of the twenty-first century are at the foreground of contemporary literature and art that seeks to effectuate a cultural intervention, and are therefore issues emphasised within the curriculums of art academies and humanities programmes. Guiding my essay is the question: How is affect related to the social?

Keywords: Affect; embodied experience; microphysics of power; theory-in-the-flesh; Zanele Muholi