The emotional economy of migration driving Mainland Chinese transnational sojourning across migration regimes

Abstract

In focusing on the way emotional ideologies underpin migration regimes, this paper underlines how migrants manage their emotions in a quest towards wider economic and social integration. The economic logics shaping the circulation of emotions within and across geographical space during transnational sojourning is referred here as the emotional economy of migration. This article compares the views of Mainland Chinese immigrants who are in Canada with those that have returned to China. Returnees claim that they plan to move back to Canada eventually, thus sustaining transnational journeys. The article argues that certain emotions appreciate or depreciate in value as they are mobilized geographically during such transnational sojourning. The analysis contributes to migration scholarship by drawing out the emotional logics, circulations and calculations that structure and prop up the political economy of migration regimes.