Affective abundance in the urban everyday: Unpacking the emotive dynamics of coexistence in diverse neighbourhoods

Abstract This article explores the emotive dynamics of everyday life in socioeconomically diverse urban neighbourhoods. It draws on Sara Ahmed's theory of affective circulation and Xavier Guillaume and Jef Huysmans’s thinking on the everyday to introduce the notion of affective abundance, which is designed to unpack how emotions shape and are shaped by urban life. Based on interviews conducted in Helsinki and Hyvinkää (Finland) and Malmö and Eskilstuna (Sweden), it discusses three affectively dense temporal constellations—persistence, succession, and routine—that reveal how emotions operate across historical, situational, and habitual layers of urban experience. The findings show that residents engage in nuanced affective sense-making that resists simplistic binaries of inclusion and exclusion or public debates centred on fear and stigma. The concept of affective abundance enables a temporally layered and emotionally holistic understanding of urban coexistence, emphasizing the subtle and often controversial emotional textures that underpin everyday life in diverse neighbourhoods.