Affective migration: Using a visceral approach to access emotion and affect of Egyptian migrant women settling in the Region of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

Abstract

I argue that a method situated in the everyday visceral experience of food preparation and consumption awakens the senses into being, opening up the body in different ways in relation to materials, senses, and other bodies, offering new insight into emotion and affect. While using ‘the body as an instrument of research’ (Longhurst et al., 2008) in this manner begins with the discussion of affective relations with food, the visceral serves as a gateway to further uncovering other affective relations with place. Affect can be understood as ‘sticky’, arising from encounters between bodies and objects in the environment and influenced by history (Ahmed, 2004). Migrants undergo considerable changes in their affective response as they encounter, contemplate, and embody new experiences – making them ‘stick’. I offer a methodological examination of a visceral approach to inform our understanding of the affective response to migration through interviews with 11 Egyptian migrant women in the Region of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada as we prepare and consume a traditional Egyptian meal together. This study is a stepping stone to addressing affect as a significant place-making factor and to providing a method to access the visceral, emotional, and affective geographies of home.