Emotions and Migration

Abstract

This chapter discusses the emotional dynamics of migration in two main areas: migration experience and politics of migration. The first section considers migration experiences at the individual, family, and community level. It approaches emotion work in the context of changinglife circumstances, as migrants moved and cultivated real and imagined connections with thehome they left behind and the home they built in new places. Understandings of emotions and management of feelings adapted as individuals and families changed over time, as didconnections between emotions and constructions of self in motion. Mobility brought these worlds together, resulting in a range of experiences characterized by tension and conflict, but also by negotiation and accommodation. The second section takes the analysis to the societallevel to focus on politics and power. It discusses how migration has been discussed in places of destination within a framework that uses emotional language to mobilize diverse audiences(readers, voters, fellow citizens). It explores restriction, scapegoating, and xenophobia to illustrate the politics of migration, but also ways in which emotions were mobilized in a positiveway to aid or welcome specific populations in terms of gender, age, or culture.