Dividing, connecting, relocating: Emotions and journeys of embodiment in transnational space

Abstract

Abstract Transnational migrants negotiate their life and belonging in complex, multi-sited settings, structured by mobility regimes granting unequal access to movement and residence rights. Emotions, in all their diversity, are part and parcel of transnational lives: international mobility and transnational practices shape emotional processes and, conversely, emotions are controlled by individuals and shape their transnational practices. We argue that the Foucauldian notion of “technologies of the self” provides a major conceptual clarification of the relationship between transnational space, emotions, and the body. To support our argument, we present the results of an analysis of qualitative interviews with transnationally mobile migrants originating from Ukraine, India, the Philippines, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, who are based in Austria and engaging in transnational practices. We identify three patterns of interactions between processes of embodiment of our respondents and the shaping of transnational space, which are mediated by different techniques of emotional self-governance.