“May death stay away from us!” Regulating desperation and desire by Eritreans with asylum status

Author(s) : Wegahta B. Sereke, Jolanta A. Drzewiecka

Source : https://doi.org/10.1080/17513057.2024.2438063

Abstract:

This paper advances the understanding of migrant adaptation by elucidating the role of emotions and their regulation in negotiations of cultural differences and power relations. We propose a concept of intercultural extrinsic emotion regulation as an other-oriented pedagogic practice that attempts to change emotions to fit a new context and implicates different forms of cultural and racial subjection. The practice emerged from our analysis of transcripts of Zoom meetings by Eritreans who came to Switzerland as refugees. The analysis was informed by the affective-discursive framework (Wetherell, 2012. Affect and emotion: a new social science understanding. SAGE.). We identified affective-discursive practices in participants’ diagnoses of problematic emotions, their efforts to regulate them, as well as their descriptions and discussions of their experiences. The analysis shows emotion regulation as a dynamic and conflictual communication practice aiming to shape others’ emotions to fit the new cultural context, overcome structural barriers and respond to exclusions. We demonstrate connections between emotions, social structures and racial ideological views that animate conflicts over what emotional practices are best suited to respond to episodic and structural racism and achieve upward mobility and inclusion. The paper advances the understanding of migrant adaptation to racial dynamics of exclusion.