This book develops the concept of affective nationalism - the banal affirmation of the national emerging in moments of encounter between different bodies and objects. Based on eight months of ethnographic field work, conducted between 2012 and 2014 in Azerbaijan, the book examines the ways in which moments of bodily encounter perpetuate banal enactments and experiences of national belonging and alienation.

The book advances scholarship on nationalism and affect by suggesting to study nationalisms not as given, but as potential and emergent experiences of differently positioned bodies in a world divided into nations.