Title: 'Like a white crow': migrant women and their emotion work in Sweden

Authors: Mona Lindqvist

Addresses: Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Department of Social and Psychological Studies, Karlstad University, SE-651 88 Karlstad, Sweden

Abstract: This interview study explores the emotion work carried out by migrant women in the process of their integration into present-day Swedish society. In considering these women's accounts and experiences of their emotion work, the analytical focus in the article is on the ways in which emotional negotiation may become part of an integration process that provides an opportunity to both change and blend in. Drawing upon Reddy's (2001) concept of emotional regimes and Hochschild's (1983) notion of emotion work, the argument centres on the creation and key role of 'alien habitus', a concept addressing the formation and performance of the migrant self in the new context and describing an ability to feel part of the host society without losing one's sense of a coherent inner self.

Keywords: alien habitus; emotion work; societal integration; migrant women; refugees; Sweden; female immigrants; emotional negotiation; inner self; migrant self.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWOE.2013.055903

International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion, 2013 Vol.5 No.3, pp.229 - 245

Published online: 28 Jun 2014 *

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