Alba Montes Sánchez

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• CV
• Research outputs
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• Press/Media
• Activities
• Keywords

As a postdoc at the Center for Subjectivity Research I am affiliated with the project Antagonistic Political Emotions. In this framework, I am primarily investigating the transformations that impact the sense of belonging of migrants and expats upon relocation, including some potentially confrontational negotiations with the host society on what it means to belong or to be an outsider. My line of research seeks to shed light on the sense of belonging (what it means to feel one belongs or doesn’t belong) by focusing on several key emotions that bear upon it. On the one hand, I look at nostalgia and hope as two phenomena that structure one’s relations to one’s past and future, thus articulating one’s sense of identity over time. On the other hand, I pay attention to a class of emotions that bind one’s sense of self with other people’s way of treating and relating to us: the so-called self-conscious emotions, such as pride, shame and envy. In these emotions, we often evaluate ourselves based on how we fare in our relations with our social environment. By looking at all these emotions, I seek to shed light on the temporal and social dimensions of belonging.

More generally, my research focuses on the philosophy and moral psychology of emotions, at the intersection of philosophy of mind and phenomenology. In the past I’ve worked extensively on the moral significance of shame at the individual level, and I’ve done research on the intersection between human self-consciousness and sociality by focusing on the social dimensions of self-conscious emotions, such as shame, envy, pride, embarrassment, and so on. On the whole, I am interested in understanding how emotions contribute to making us who we are as individuals and groups, as well as the crucial roles they play in informing our moral and political thinking and action. You can find out more about my research in this podcast interview.

Primary fields of research

Philosophy of Mind, Phenomenology, Selfhood, Intersubjectivity, Sociality and Group Membership, Narrative Identity, Moral Psychology and Phenomenology, Emotion (especially self-conscious and moral emotions), Ethics and Emotion, Shame, Nostalgia, Belonging

Teaching

At the moment I do not teach any courses, but I am avilable to supervise MA or BA theses on topics related to my research and I welcome expressions of interest in this regard.

Selected publications

1. Published

   Emotional Self-Knowledge

   Montes Sánchez, Alba (ed.) & Salice, A. (ed.), 2 Jun 2023, New York: Routledge. 242 p. (Routledge studies in contemporary philosophy).

   Research output: Book/Report › Book › Research › peer-review

2. Published

   Self-Understanding and Moral Self-Improvement in Individual Shame and Shame Based on Group Identification

   Montes Sánchez, Alba & Salice, A., 2023, The Moral Psychology of Shame. Fussi, A. & Rodogno, R. (eds.). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, (Moral Psychology of the Emotions).

   Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Book chapter › Research › peer-review

3. Published

   Hetero-induced shame and survivor shame

   Montes Sánchez, Alba, 1 May 2020, The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Emotion. Taylor and Francis Inc., p. 455-465 11 p.

   Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Book chapter › Research › peer-review

4. Published

   Pride, Shame and Group Identification

   Salice, A. & Montes Sánchez, Alba, 2016, In: Frontiers in Psychology. 7, 557

   Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review

5. Published

   Shame and the Internalized Other

   Montes Sánchez, Alba, 2015, In: Etica e Politica / Ethics and Politics. XVII, 1, p. 181-200 20 p.

   Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review

Selected activities

1. Towards a Phenomenology of the Sense of Belonging and the Emotional Impact of Migration

   Montes Sánchez, Alba (Invited speaker)

   28 Mar 2023

   Activity: Talk or presentation types › Lecture and oral contribution

2. Emotional Self-Knowledge

   Montes Sánchez, Alba (Organizer) & Salice, A. (Organizer)

   4 May 2022 → 6 May 2022

   Activity: Participating in an event - types › Organisation of and participation in conference