Transcript Henrietta Nyamnjoh ppt - Mobile Africa Revisited

From Transcending transnational
transaction and material
accumulation to negotiating
emotional transnationalism
amongst the Pinyin and Mankon
communities in Cape Town
complains and demands, for me it’s
about phoning and speaking to people
who really show these emotions of joy
and excitement that you have phoned,
even over the phone because you can
sense them. The more distance you
are financially, the more some people
will be distant even in their
communication approaches so it puts
me off and I just do not feel like
phoning those people.
It should be reciprocal especially when
Emotion culture/emotion as ‘a social
construct’
Arlie Hochschild (1979)
• every society possesses an
‘emotion culture’ which
consist of a complex of
ideas about what people
are suppose to feel in
various types of situation.
• emotion ideologies about
appropriate attitudes,
feelings and emotional
responses in basic spheres
of activity
Steven Gordon’s (1990)
• emotion as ‘a social construct’ emotions influence, and are
influenced by, the flow of
interaction in social structures
regulated by cultural norms,
values and beliefs.
• that culture provides accounts of
the origins and nature of different
emotions, including their likely
causes and outcomes, and it
identifies how emotions are
expressed and managed.
• emotions are culturally
embedded and regulated by
culture than biologically
Towards a culture of emotional
mobility
• Mobiles need “emotional energy” l (Collins
1990).
• need and often turn to the various relations
for emotional support to insulate them from
stress.
• Difficulty in communication prior to advances
in ICTs meant that that emotions were
channelled in long hours of studies, work and
wealth accumulation, and even longs periods
of abstention from calling.
• communication was not easy, you need to
pass the message through a third party,
maybe you’re borrowing somebody’s phone
and then you say can you go and deliver this
message, or can you go and be by their side so
that when I call I can talk to them so that was
one of the factors. And then the second factor
was the fact that I did not want to increase my
worries . . . I call them just to know how they
are doing then… and then what? Because I
• ICTs - virtual umbilical cords that link migrants
and family. Shift from communication drought
• convey in part, ‘moral virtue’ and serve as a
conduit to conveying emotional energy.
• Density of networks forged
Negotiating emotional
transnationalism/transculturalism
• Communication technology thus annihilate
boundaries that separated migrant.
• Long waiting period of letter writing was
reduced
• Ability to travel back and forth
• Could also lead to “suboptimal exchanges”
(Turner & Stets, 2005)
• Family re-unions and planned visits – Rachael
looks forward to “just hugging her mother and
cry with her. I have missed her so much and
can’t even imagine what she is going through
since my father died . . . I also have a lot of
things to tell my father when I go, I will have
to talk to him on his grave”
• Photos and memorabilia as co-presence
• When I was coming to South Africa, I brought
along photos of my wife and children. These
photos have been quite helpful especially on
days that I miss them very much. I take them
out and go through them, after which I call
them while looking at the photos. It makes me
feel as if they are next to me and after that I
can sleep calmly
• Mediated phone calls
• Clandestine phone calls -You may spend your
whole day there and leave without reaching
home. But when you are lucky to get through,
you leave there a happy man and this steam
keeps you going for the next months before
you reach home again. You see, but when you
leave without calling, your whole week and
those after is bad as you are in doubts as to
how is the family. This was the case with me at