Can you feel the difference? Emotions as an analytical lens

Abstract. Against the background of emotional geographies, I analyse negotiations of belonging and experiences of difference. Emotions serve as the analytical lens through which these negotiations and experiences are analysed. Based on this notion, I will analyse migrants' accounts with respect to their emotional qualities and spatial articulations. In particular, I will focus on emotional accounts, such as childhood stories and other biographical stories, which are spatially situated. The emotional focus serves thereby as a lens to capture migrants' identification with the social norms and values inscribed and mediated through these spaces. These emotional accounts help us to understand complex stories about social positioning along different axes of difference, complex ways of identification, and resistance to social role models.