Affective economies of AI in digitalised higher education

Abstract The integration of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in higher education has meant that universities are experiencing a significant period of uncertainty and flux. The need to understand how GenAI technologies are shaping students’ evolving experiences of higher education is important. This paper asks: what work do emotions do within the way educators and students engage with AI? Engaging Sara Ahmed’s concept of affective economies , and Raymond Williams’ structures of feeling , to explore connections between digital technologies and emotions, I examine how emotions are not simply internal experiences, but circulate through texts, bodies, objects and institutions. Analysing examples of institutional guidelines for students’ use of GenAI technologies, I surface how feelings of excitement, ambivalence, and anxiety imbue current educational AI discourses. I consider how we might understand these emotions and discourses, including how such discourses risk perpetuating educational cultures premised on notions of individualism, as opposed to inclusivity. As AI conversations evolve, I argue that educators should continue to examine the work that emotions do, as well as exploring more collective responses to AI pedagogies.