#RanaPlazaNeverAgain

Abstract This paper explores the connection between emotions and argumentative inference in digital activists’ discourse on fashion sustainability. We explore this theoretical problem through an empirical approach, drawing on a corpus of activists’ Instagram messages posted during Fashion Revolution Week, a campaign launched to commemorate the 2013 Rana Plaza accident which killed more than a thousand garment workers. We reconstruct argumentative configurations ( Lucchini 2025 ) in the posts, focusing on the frequently occurring locus from termination and setting up ( Rigotti and Greco 2019 ). We analyse how emotions are expressed linguistically ( Micheli 2014 ) and how they interact with loci. Our findings show that the linguistic analysis of emotions needs to be complemented by an analysis of argumentative inference; and we introduce the concept of emotional dynamics to explain how argumentative inference can produce a change in emotions, moving from dysphoric emotions about a tragic accident towards hope for systemic change.