ERRANT LIVES AND EMOTIONS

This book explores the emotional landscapes shaped by mobility, transience, and wandering. Building on classical and contemporary sociological thought--from Ibn Khaldun and Marx-Engels to Bauman and Goffman--it looks at the ambivalent emotions experienced by migrants, exiles, refugees, the homeless, and others whose lives are defined by movement. Through a systematic analysis of "wandering emotions," the book reveals their dual nature: driven by joy or pain, freedom or necessity, adventure or survival. These emotions embody the tension between order and chaos, rootedness and uprooting, the nomadic and the sedentary. Highlighting their ephemeral and contingent character, the book underscores the extraordinary complexity of feelings that arise during transitory states. Using Weberian social types, it examines the tragic necessity of wandering in contexts as varied as migration, homelessness, pandemic-induced isolation, and more. This book will be of interest to sociologists, anthropologists, and those interested in mobility and emotions, Juan A. Roche Cárcel is Professor of Sociology of Culture, the Arts, and Emotions at the University of Alicante, Spain. A prolific author, his recent works include La creatividad rota (2024), A Silent Scream (2022), and Creativity and Time (2021). He has published extensively in leading journals and edited international monographs. Roche Cárcel has been a visiting professor at universities across Latin America, Europe, and Turkey, and has held leadership roles in the European Sociology Association and the Spanish Federation of Sociology. He currently chairs EMOCS at the University of Alicante and serves as Vice-President of REDISS.