Abstract The concept of ‘emotional communities’ has been a fruitful category for understanding the collective action of grassroot organisations in Bogotá, Colombia. In our study group on the subject, we developed our own approach of the concept thanks to the input from many authors who have used it, as well as from our empirical findings in research. The aim of this essay is, first, to discuss emotional communities and explain the gaps we found in some of the foundational works on the concept; second, to analyse the ways that our empirical data offered insights that helped widen up the concept for our research. Finally, it concludes with an argument of how this approach could serve to enhance understanding of the collective situated knowledge that sustain people’s actions of transformation within specific contexts.