It’s All About Emotions

The study focuses on highly skilled migrants, specifically, Swiss in Israel and Israelis in Switzerland. The attention of the study lies on the significance of migration within (multi-sited) biographies. Focusing on twelve main protagonist, Helene Mona Oberle analyses and discusses the perceptions, interpretations, and varying uses of emotions in migration-narratives. Three main themes are presented: first, feelings of (non-)belonging to places and specific groups; second, past, present and future in the form of nostalgia, irritation and expectation; third, notions of "going abroad" as a feeling of accomplishment emerging within the narratives. Overall, the protagonists construct a self which is flexibly adapted to the empirical reality of globalization, experiences struggles and tensions yet creates meaningful connections to specific places and times through the use of various emotions.