Reading Migrations and Displacement through the Lens of Emotions

4 March 2021. From 18:30 | Webinar | English | Online

Protesters outside the Crowne Plaza London Heathrow hotel in West Drayton, London, which is being used as accommodation for asylum seekers. 17 of February 2021. REUTERS

Emotions and feelings in relation to migration, particularly within the political sphere, have taken crucial roles in recent years. Notably, migration took relevance with the coming to power of white nationalist parties, as well as political events such as Brexit. In this session, Ruba Salih reflects on how migration and diaspora, usually discussed as threats, can be re-read through affect and economies of fear. These lenses help to complicate mainstream approaches and debates around migration, which rely on cognitive and rational forms of deliberation and understanding. Instead, Salih explores the role of the uncanny and the visceral, feelings such as fears, desires, suffering and aspirations – as well as the ethical moral and political dimensions of emotions- to nuance our understanding of the contemporary politics and perceptions of selves and otherness.

Ruba Salih, a social anthropologist from SOAS (London), exposes the connections between migration and emotions in a lecture of the Aula Mediterrània series presented by Lurdes Vidal, director of the Arab & Mediterranean department (IEMed). Co-organised with the Master’s in Advanced Studies in International Affairs, Blanquerna – Universitat Ramon Llull.