Book review of Gefühle im Prozess der Migration. Transkulturelle Narrationen zwischen Zugehörigkeit und Distanzierung by Yvonne Albrecht (Wiesbaden: Springer VS. 2017)

Abstract

The newly published doctoral thesis of Yvonne Albrecht “Feelings in the Migration Process. Transcultural Narrations between Belonging and Distance” is a must-have for those who are interested in the nexus between migration and emotion. Apart from the pleasurable read, it is a seminal analysis on the subject still lacking academic attention. The main research question is what opportunities of handling their emotions migrants choose in order to be able to act in the challenging context of the arrival country. The innovativeness of this research rests in particular in the non-pathologizing look at the ways migrants deal with their emotions: It focuses not only on the negative aspects of emotion regulation, its failures and migrants’ suffering, but also sees possibilities of autonomous and creative ways to handle emotions in the context of new expectations and requirements to their behavior.