Understanding Migration Through Emotion and Power

Résumé

In contemporary discussions of labour migration, exploitation has emerged as a defining feature of the lived migrant experience, shaped by the social, political, and cultural framing of the ‘migrant’ through affect. Discussions of migration and labour often focus on the physical environments that migrant workers experience in their host countries, overlooking the affective lives and realities of migrant labourers. Drawing on affect theory helps uncover how affect influences migration and shapes the experiences of migrant labourers. Discursive affective elements play a crucial role in constructing the image of migration within public discourse. Host countries receive significant benefit from migrant workers in the form of low-wage, skilled labour and economic profit. Therefore, in the context of the American Dream, discussing affect exposes how the American Dream is not a simple reality but a construct engineered by the state through the use of affective appeals to entice labour migration. Similarly, state institutions utilize the same affective strategies in the construction of the “American Dream” as they do in the “othering” of migrants, positioning how certain bodies are privileged and recognized within the host country, while others are marginalized or excluded. In framing migrants as a threat to national security and cohesion, states are able to justify exclusionary policies and practices related to border control and regulation. Overall, this paper discusses how state institutions simultaneously utilize affective strategies to both promote migration through the American Dream and marginalize migrants, serving to justify exploitation.