Emotions and cosmopolitan sociability: Barriers and opportunities for intercultural encounters amongst new Chinese migrants in New Zealand

ABSTRACT

Emotions matter, particularly in experiences of migration. This article explores how emotions are involved in everyday intercultural encounters and the role of emotions in generating cosmopolitan sociability in the context of migration. The article is based upon qualitative research with 80 Chinese 1st and 1.5 generation migrants in New Zealand. We focus on ‘contact zones’ as social spaces where migrants have uneven opportunities to encounter cultural others and where ‘emotional dissonance’ can emerge through unsuccessful intercultural exchanges. In order to generate a sense of comfort and familiarity in such conflicted spaces, migrants need to invest in ‘emotional labour’ to engage in more cosmopolitan sociability as an attempt to transform ‘contact zone’ to ‘comfort zone’. Through this article we argue that emotions can both promote and encourage, but also undermine and limit the capacity to perform cosmopolitan sociability and build intercultural relations.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotions
• migrations
• emotional labour
• cosmopolitan sociability
• contact zones
• domestication

Notes

1 The 1.5 generation refers to adolescents who immigrate to a new country with their parents before or during their early teens, generally between 6 and 14 years old.

2 ‘20'is the age of migration; ‘35’ is her age at interview; ‘F’ represents ‘female’; Auckland is current residence.

3 Dominion Road is a street well-known for its high density of Asian (mainly Chinese) restaurants.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a scholarship [No. 201206220081] provided by China Scholarship Council.