Coined by feminist scholar Sarah Ahmed, the term affective economy describes how emotions circulate, creating connections between individuals and material objects or spaces—such as one’s relationship to a social group, a childhood home, or a nation. Though often conceived as internal or private, Ahmed argues that emotions are socially organized: they work through attachments between people and things, thereby forming collectives (“our family,” “our country”). In this process, emotions shift, coalesce, and accumulate—partly resembling how money gains value through exchange and flow. Ahmed uses the term “economy” based on this resemblance: emotions have weight and value through circulation, in spite of seeming immaterial (see RwC Empathic, Wages for Facebook).