#WhileWeWereGone: Political Antagonism, Control, and Empowerment Online

Investigations into antagonistic political emotions have typically included a concern with expressions and actions related to particular emotions, such as hatred, anger, fear, and ressentiment, or examining how seemingly positive or apolitical emotions can become antagonistic on the political stage. Yet one of the ways in which antagonistic politics plays out is through imposing controls and restrictions on the spaces containing the expressions and experiences of emotions. Focusing on online social spaces as such a container, we examine how antagonistic politics play out within and through such spaces. Using the case of the 2019 protests in Iran when access to the internet was blocked across the nation as a means of oppressing revolt, we examine dynamics of political antagonism online. We highlight the affordances of online communities as a “holding space” for various emotions and affects that arise in response to state violence and oppression, and we consider some ways in which online spaces foster new possibilities for political empowerment and collective action.