"We never complain" : exploring the development of emotional capital in Japanese migrants to France

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Exploring the Development of

Emotional Capital in Japanese

Migrants to France

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Student Name: Rachel Vise

UVA ID: 12144630

Thesis Supervisor: Liliya Leopold

Second Reader: Patrick Brown

August 2019

Master of Sociology: Cultural Sociology

Faculty of Social and Behavior Sciences

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Abstract

To date, the relationship between migration, wellbeing, and emotion remains relatively unexplored from a sociological perspective. Focusing on the population of Japanese migrants to France, this study examines the development of new forms of emotional capital, during a process of post-migratory secondary socialization, as facilitating wellbeing. The findings of this study challenge the durable nature of capital gained through primary socialization, and call further attention to the malleability of habitus, positing totalization and/or transubstantiation of the emotional habitus as potential

outcomes of long-term secondary socialization. This study also lends credence to theories on the emotional acculturation of migrants, and explores the emotional strategies

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Chapter 1 : Introduction

1.1. Introduction

In her article “Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure,” Arlie Hochschild (1979) leaves her reader to consider how sex, class, ethnicity and religion influence feeling rules, the implicit social rules about what should be felt in a given situation. But these rules can also be bound to culture, and their implications become particularly important when looking at the movement of people across geo-political boundaries, as changing contexts necessarily changes the rules by which individuals must play.

To date, the relationship between migration, wellbeing, and emotion remains relatively unexplored, and while the relationship between wellbeing and emotion has been examined from a psychological perspective, the sociological aspects of emotion,

particularly how emotion is shaped by and rooted in culture, are oft overlooked. So how does one navigate culturally mandated emotive norms when they are not one’s own, and how does this inform the wellbeing of migrants?

In order to examine the role of emotion in migrant wellbeing, I have thus chosen the case of Japanese migrants in France as theoretically illustrative case, for two reasons. First, depressive disorders are a major health issue in Japan, with suicide rates on the rise since 1998 (Yamazaki, Fukuhara, and Green 2005). Second, despite the long history of mutual appreciation of each other’s cultural objects, dating back to the 1868 Meiji Restoration, Japanese migrants in France have historically been largely invisible (Yatabe 2001), with but some 30,000 migrants living in France today (France Diplomatie 2018). Furthermore, the case of the Japanese in France has been hypersensationalized due to the identification of a psychosocial disorder that affects primarily Japanese visitors to Paris. Identified in 1991 by Dr. Hiroaki Ota, physician at the Sainte-Anne Hospital and attaché to the Japanese Embassy in Paris, ‘Paris syndrome’ is typically triggered by a bad social encounter with a Parisian. Little academic work has been published on the phenomenon in languages other than Japanese, but the identification of the disorder begs the question: is France in some way particularly destabilizing for Japanese tourists? And if so, does

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this, too, extend to realm of Japanese migrants? The short answer is no. While I began this study with a vague hypothesis that ‘cultural distance,’ rooted in differences of emotive norms, would provoke cultural stress in the case of Japanese migrants to France, I very early on came to understand that this hunch was rooted in unconscious internalized stereotypes about Japanese emotionality. As such, this study breaks from the tired notion that cultural distance provokes crisis (examined in Section 1.5), and instead examines the emotional mechanisms which facilitate migrant wellbeing. This study centers primarily around the mechanism of emotional capital, specifically how migrants come to acquire and mobilize new forms of emotional capital in order to meet cultural demands, and, furthermore, the degree to which this development transforms their emotional habitus.1

In this introductory chapter, I will first define some of the key concepts used in this thesis, before providing an overview of the dominant emotive norms in both Japan and France, with specific attention paid to the lack of research in the French context. I will then provide a review of the literature on migration, wellbeing, and acculturation, highlighting the glaring absence of emotion by calling attention to recent work on emotional acculturation. Finally, I will articulate my research aims, explaining how I hope to address the gaps identified.

1.2. Defining Terms

A coherent understanding of the terms guiding this thesis is necessary from the outset, many of which relate to emotion. As such, I operationalize my key concepts below:

Acculturation is the process of cultural and psychological change that occurs when two

groups come into contact (Sam and Berry 2010).

Rooted in this process, acculturative stress is a stress response to serious challenges not easily resolved by a simple modification of behavior (Sam and Berry 2010).

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An extension of Bourdieu’s cultural capital, emotional capital includes the “emotion-specific, trans-situational resources that individuals activate and embody in distinct fields” (Cottingham 2016:451)2. Simultaneously static and dynamic, and thus possessing of dual status, I conceptualize emotional capital as a ‘two-sided coin’; in order to

mobilize emotional capital, there is the prerequisite of knowledge acquired through socialization (Cottingham 2016). The multi-layered complexity of this concept will be

explored in its entirety in Chapter 3.

Feeling rules are the implicit social rules about what should be felt in a given situation,

the possession of which denotes group membership (Hochschild 1979). Sex, class, ethnicity, and religion all function to shape how these ideological rules apply to a given individual (Hochschild 1979).

Emotion work encompasses the conscious, deliberate act of evoking or suppressing a

given feeling, of which one becomes aware when the individual’s feelings are not in line with the situational mandate (Hochschild 1979).

The cultural repertoire, metaphorically related as a ‘toolbox’ or ‘toolkit,’ refers to the repository of (sometimes inconsistent) strategies upon which an individual can draw in order to meet cultural or institutional demands (Swidler 2000).

Emotional habitus refers to the socially constituted dominant modes of feeling and

emoting that appear as a self-evident ‘feel for the game’ (Bourdieu 1990; Gould 2009). Because it includes the “embodied, axiomatic understandings and norms about feelings and their expression” (Gould 2009:10), I posit that emotional habitus is the very

landscape in which wellbeing takes its shape. I thus position the emotional habitus as a location for personal struggle; in this context, with and against the self, the home and host countries, and the subtle process of change—which may or may not occur consciously (Gould 2009).

2_{Emphasis added}

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Migration here refers to movement of people across international lines. In this study, the

term ‘migrant’ will thus refer to the Japanese migrant to France.

Wellbeing here is used in a psycho-emotional sense, and corresponds to an individual’s

mental and emotional stability, e.g. feelings of happiness or comfort (World Health Organization 2014).

1.3. The Japanese Emotional Habitus

Japanese social and emotional norms appear to have a mutually constitutive character in the way emotive norms are interwoven into the fabric of social mandates (Smith,

Matsuno, and Umino 1994; Smith, Matsuno, and Ike 2001; Smith and Francis 2005; as reviewed in De Leersnyder, Boiger, and Mesquita 2013).

Two strong themes emerge when reviewing previous work on Japanese emotionality: social harmony and silence. Because there exists a more collective, interconnected social structure (Smith et al. 1994; Smith and Francis 2005), collective social values supercede the individual, with the Japanese ideal prizing collectiveness and adherence to social values (Smith et al. 1994; Smith and Francis 2005) as a means of maintaining social harmony.

An “outside-in orientation when with others” and a focus on “others, reciprocity,

belongingness, hierarchy, and social obligations” demonstrate the degree to which social harmony supercedes the individual, with an individual’s evaluation of self-worth

contingent upon how well they conform to these norms (Smith et al. 1994:126; Smith and Francis 2005:822). These social rules come to take an emotive directive as evidenced by Smith et al.’s (2001:192) finding of a “strong propensity to avoid emotional display” in the Japanese habitus due to a belief that emotional expression is out of order.

De Leersnyder et al.’s (2013) review of cultural emotion regulation lends support to Smith et al. (1994) and Smith and Francis’ (2005) findings, discussing the work of Kitayama and Markus (2000) and Kitayama et al. (2006) on socially engaging emotions

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(such as shame and guilt) as occurring more frequently in Japanese cultural contexts, keeping in line with the primacy of relatedness and interdependence. A salient illustration of this appears in the emotional reactions of Japanese students shown a disturbing film: when watching with others, they displayed fewer negative emotions, suggesting there exist Japanese display rules of emotion (Kitayama and Markus 2000; Kitayama et al. 2006 as reviewed in De Leersnyder et al. 2013). This lends credence to the idea that collectivist cultures, like Japan, have displays rules of suppression, and in line with Smith et al. (1994) and Smith and Francis’ (2005) work, that Japanese people consider the meaning of their own behavior for other people; in short, that structural conditions and cultural mandates impact emotional expression (De Leersnyder et al. 2013).

The work of Smith et al. (1994), Smith and Francis (2005) and De Leersnyder et al.’s (2013) review lead me to suspect that in Japan, emotive norms are bound to a culture of silence. While Zerubavel’s work (2006) on the “conspiracy of silence” focuses primarily on silence as a politically powerful tool, here I will explore emotional silence as the product of normative pressures to maintain social order. We can understand the centrality of silence as related to the Japanese emphasis on collectivity and harmony (Smith et al. 1994; Smith and Francis 2005). There is strong social pressure to consider others; so strong, that “self-centered, autonomous individuals are considered immature and

uncultivated” (Smith and Francis 2005:822). Though these rules are not explicitly stated, they are nevertheless learned and internalized, and the silent means of dissemination and acquisition of this knowledge creates the double wall of silence that results in people both reproducing and falling victim to emotional isolation (Zerubavel 2006). This system of mutual avoidance silently demands the collaborative cooperation of the group, and it silently reinforces a strong public/private divide about what is an “appropriate” emotional display that can render low emotions difficult to perform (Zerubavel 2006; De

Leersnyder, Mesquita, and Kim 2011). Furthermore, this emphasis on silence creates a sharp cultural boundary between the French and the Japanese, and can thus leave

Japanese individuals in the French context feeling very much like outsiders when strong displays of emotion leave them unsure of how to behave, requiring both emotion work and the juggling of two conflicting cultural repertoires. What, then, are the mutually constitutive social and emotional norms that shape the French habitus?

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1.4. The French Emotional Habitus

There currently exists a gap in the literature with respect to French norms, emotional or otherwise; what literature does exist is found primarily in the vein of how-to guides written mostly for a white, upper-middle class North American audience (see: Asselin and Mastron 2001; Barlow and Nadeau 2016), with only one academic text I found vaguely engaging the question of what French norms are understood to be (Safi 2008). While providing Tribulat’s definition of the French model, “secular and egalitarian and founded on the individual’s autonomy in her or her relations with the state and society,” and view of integration as an increasing convergence towards the “average behavior of French people,” (a view of integration from which Safi departs) (Safi 2008:9-10), Safi never operationalizes her understanding of French norms, which becomes further problematic when she introduces a ‘cultural references dimension’ indicator, whose aim is to gauge whether the individual is closer to the cultural practices of their home country or to France, because the French cultural dimension is never operationalized (Safi 2008). Yet another problematic arises with her ‘norms dimension’ indicator; she describes ‘modernity’ as a fundamental characteristic of French society, ‘modern’ values being those which “favor individual’s autonomy from the family circle and the community, emancipation of women, being able to choose one’s occupational and conjugal way of life, and a low level of religious practice” (Safi 2008:13). Their definitions are equally problematic in their formulations, for their use suggests that (gender) equality,

‘modernity,’ and secularism are inherently Western, and that these ideas are confined but to the Occidental sphere.3

The absence of explicit discussion of French norms is two-fold. In not making plain the dominant norms in French society, literature touching questions surrounding French

3_{Wang’s 2017 study on the gendered transformation of matrimonial norms backs this; she gives}

an example of a Chinese woman who must participate in gender equality training courses after marrying a Frenchman, and the shock this participant feels that the French state feels she needs to learn this—because she already embodies these beliefs—which at the same time restricts her identity to that of the foil of a ‘French spouse.’

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identity silently reinforces the implicit imbalance of power within the academic field. Conversations about French identity thus start with an a priori assumption—that is, that French norms do not need to be explicitly articulated, as those reading already implicitly understand what is meant. This speaks to the hegemonic tendency within academia itself—which is to say, that while non-Occidental norms need be spelled out for

academia’s assumed Western audience, Occidental norms need not be made plain in this same way. This problematic requires immediate attention.

However, the other side of the coin lies in the highly contested nature of French identity politics,4 which leaves discussion of national habitus extremely politicized, because it both constructs and reinforces a certain narrative of what it means to be ‘French,’ a conversation all the more polemic as French society is not nearly as ethnically homogenous as its Japanese counterpart (its population being 98.5% “ethnically” Japanese). While this seems a valid reason to hold back, and perhaps explains the vagueness of academics regarding French identity, dominant norms of non-Western and minority groups have been explained in detail, and as such, French norms must be reckoned with in this same way. As such, the question needs to be addressed: what are the dominant norms surrounding emotion in France? In answering this question, I hope to make explicit the information both insider and assumed, as currently, public knowledge of these norms is functionally gatekept. As such, drawing on journalistic accounts of migration to France, this section presents a creative first attempt to make plain the dominant emotive norms in France, and, consequently, indicate the behavior implicitly expected of the ‘successful’ migrant in France. Given the sometimes sensationalistic writing style of such guides, my positionality here is key; I occupy a curious space between insider and outsider, which gives me both the distance necessary to critically evaluate the veracity of information presented on French norms of feeling, as well as a certain ‘feel for the game’ borne of my years in France, further bolstered by the

multivocal reflections of my French network as I have sought to map out what norms constitute the French emotional habitus. Due to limitations of space, and further, that

4_{It is illegal in France to include census questions on race or ethnicity (Asselin and Mastron}

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seminal investigation and articulation of French feeling rules was never intended to be within the scope of my thesis, I cannot here do the full body of information justice, and as such, the review of emotive norms here is cursory.

There is cultural imperative to express embedded within French norms. The French education system in particular functions as a vehicle for the transmission of this

imperative, as seen in the importance of speaking, which is to say, verbal communication, a skill cultivated and repeatedly reproduced at school (Barlow and Nadeau 2016).

The high status of philosophy in conjunction with the republican principles of equality and liberty places a two-fold importance on the “right” of expression (Barlow and

Nadeau 2016). One’s ability to criticize, contradict, or titillate demonstrates the sharpness and nuance of one’s wit, sometimes resulting in an outside perception of the French as negative, but which actually underscores the value of intellect in modern France, a product of French literary and philosophical traditions “favoring doubt over uncertainty” (Barlow and Nadeau 2016:146). But the “right” to express extends beyond the academic, into a deeply entrenched adherence to universalism, “which requires that everyone in a given situation, regardless of origins and particular circumstances, be treated exactly the same” (Asselin and Mastron 2001:129). In this vein, the “right” to express finds its roots in France’s revolutionary history and in the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen, which established human rights as universal, superceding nationality, religion, etc. (Asselin and Mastron 2001). The French national motto—libérté, égalité, fraternité (liberty, equality, fraternity)—underscores the enduring persistence of the ideas borne of the French Revolution, the deep tradition of equality that to this day informs the systems of French healthcare and social services (Asselin and Mastron 2001), and, unsurprisingly, the “right” and freedom of expression is ever-reflected in the protests and manifestations of the Gilets Jaunes today. Expression is thus couched in an intellectual as well as egalitarian mandate.

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The expression “appeler un chat un chat”5 (call a cat a cat) reveals what is sometimes perceived as a harsh frankness on the part of the French; however, this reflects moreso the French distaste for mincing words, which perhaps finds its roots in the ‘formatting’ the French undergo in the education system (Asselin and Mastron 2001; Barlow and Nadeau 2016). Despite this ‘formatting,’ however, there is nevertheless a strong individualistic tendency among the French, which may relate to the manner in which French children are raised (Asselin and Mastron 2001). With adults’ concerns overriding children’s, French children learn the behaviors expected of them at an early age (e.g. not to interrupt) (Asselin and Mastron 2001). Wylie suggests that French children develop creative expression as a means of eschewing imposed psychological and social control, and this is perhaps another means through which such a deep vein of (embodied) expressiveness comes in: “When verbal expression is not permitted, there is the

expressive power of the eyes, the body, the importance of mime” (Wylie 1981:58 as cited in Asselin and Mastron 2001). In conjunction with educational formatting, this suggests that French child-rearing practices produce and reproduce a distinctly French

expressionality, while at the same time requiring a certain streak of individuality and independence. Furthering this notion is the concept of “débrouillardise,” which conveys improvisation, creativity, and problem solving, valued exactly because one’s capacity to “débrouiller” (to untangle, to manage, to sort things out) demonstrates independence (Asselin and Mastron 2001).

To underline the aforementioned importance of speaking, I now present a ritual rooted in verbal communication, tied to a feeling rule centered on respect.

The key to success in France is successful navigation of certain phatic rituals which function to open lines of communication (Barlow and Nadeau 2016). Strictly social in function, various expressions in French function to announce the kind of behavior to follow (e.g. roh-loh-loh—complaining—or bon appétit—eating) (Barlow and Nadeau 2016). These are part of the French communication protocol. Phatics often do not

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translate, and thus a contextual grasp of their meaning is essential (Barlow and Nadeau 2016).

The most important of these is the “obligatory verbal transaction of ‘bonjour’” (Barlow and Nadeau 2016:25). ‘Bonjour’ holds status as the universal greeting, and indicates to others that an interaction is about to take place, announcing simultaneously one’s presence and/or intention to communicate (Barlow and Nadeau 2016). Failure to adhere to this ritual can immediately sour any social interaction, because ‘bonjour’ is an

acknowledgement, underlining the égalité so valued in French society, and as such its presence conveys respect—and thus its absence, a lack thereof (Barlow and Nadeau 2016). It is the password for unlocking any social interaction, and failure to produce this password can immediately sour what is to follow (Barlow and Nadeau 2016).

While all of the aspects mentioned here are of course contextually dependent and subject to change, the purpose of this section is to introduce the dominant norms most relevant to this study. Furthermore, while I have shown here that the French emotional habitus is informed by republican ideals of equality, I would like to iterate that equality written is not equality made manifest, and as such the degree to which one is indeed treated as equal in French society depends upon one’s social location within it (e.g. Wang 2017). As Asselin and Mastron (2001:129-131) remind:

“At the core of the French welcome has been the assumption that foreigners arriving in France can and should assimilate to French culture. […] Cultural minorities in France are acknowledged and respected only to the extent that they fit into the French social and cultural mold and do not disturb the social order. The magic word for success as an immigrant is assimilation.”6

1.5. Migration, Wellbeing, and Acculturation

6_{Again, Wang’s (2017) study reifies this notion, showing that the French reception policy}

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In a review of the ASA’s Journal of Health and Social Behavior (JHSB) publications from 1960 until 2014, Takeuchi (2016) found that of 1,786 papers, only 18 (1%) discuss the Sociology of Immigration and Mental Health, illustrating a clear need for more investigation in this field. In this section, I will provide an overview of existing literature related to migration and wellbeing, taking a frequently encountered term, acculturation, as my starting point.

Acculturation, the process of cultural and psychological change that occurs when two groups come into contact, can be examined on both the group and individual level (Sam and Berry 2010). On the individual level, the aspects of this process are referred to as the “ABCs of Acculturation”—which is to say, the affective, behavioral, and cognitive aspects of the acculturative process, with each aspect entailing a different theoretical approach (Ward 2001).

The affective perspective, identifying the acculturation process as a stressful event, focuses on emotion and wellbeing as related to stress and coping in the absence of

appropriate coping strategies and/or social supports (Sam and Berry 2010), an example of which would be when individuals lack the prerequisite knowledge to navigate culturally specific rules due to unfamiliarity with the dominant emotional norms of the host country.

The behavioral perspective emphasizes cultural learning, the modification of behavior (such as emotion management) the individual undertakes during the acculturation process (Sam and Berry 2010). This approach emphasizes cross-cultural difference and

intercultural misunderstanding, and how the individual modifies their behavior in order to better navigate the new cultural landscape (Sam and Berry 2010). For instance, Kalberg’s (2010) examination of West German and American misunderstanding sheds light on how differences in social norms can reinforce the insider/outsider divide. In the American context, in-group/out-group divisions are more porous and expressions of ‘personality’ are a means of gaining social recognition and acceptance; however, in the West German context, social boundaries are more rigid, and newcomers are expected to adhere to these rules until transition from out-group to in-group is complete (Kalberg 2010). These

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differences in interpersonal norms can thus create a pattern of misunderstanding, with the American individual interpreting the sharper insider/outsider divide in the West German as a lack of hospitality or unfriendliness (Kalberg 2010). However, as Kalberg’s study reveals, modification of behavior cannot be undertaken without the prerequisite knowledge of the sociocultural norms to be met.

The cognitive approach focuses on how individuals perceive and identify themselves and others in the intercultural context, how and why categorization functions as a tool of identity construction (Sam and Berry 2010). I thus posit that the process of integration fundamentally alters one’s conception of self, as one slides from an understanding of self as out-group and begins to feel in-group, engendering, as discussed in later chapters, a transformation of emotional habitus.

Sam and Berry (2010) also present a fourth perspective on acculturation, which seeks to account for the changes the individual undergoes from the dual perspectives of

development and acculturation. Largely, the developmental perspective as is calls

attention to the importance of including developmental theory rather than positing a clear theoretical approach (Sam and Berry 2010).

This brings me to the absent presence of an emotional perspective. While the affective perspective does technically include ‘emotion,’ it is presented as something that can pose a problem rather than facilitate wellbeing.

Previous research indicates that people’s emotional patterns become increasingly similar to those with whom they engage in social relationships, suggesting that culture, too, can inform emotion through intercultural relationships and interactions (De Leersnyder et al. 2011). Because emotion can function as a vehicle through which individuals embody cultural ideals, an individual’s emotional ‘fit’ with the dominant emotional patterns of a given culture can thus reflect the degree to which they share and participate in said culture’s meaning and practices (De Leersnyder et al. 2011).

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De Leersnyder and colleagues (2011) suggest this ‘fit’ may actually aid in the navigation of socio-cultural demands and facilitate wellbeing, consistent with previous research that emotionally similar groups tend to be happier.

They thus propose emotional acculturation, the changes in an individual’s emotional patterns which come in by means of exposure to and contact with a new cultural context, as a process of social and cultural adjustment (De Leersnyder et al. 2011).

In two studies on Koreans in the United States and Turkish migrants in Belgium, they measured the emotional experiences of migrants and host group members and found that emotional concordance could be predicted by length of exposure to the host culture, with each year spent in a given context positively associated with migrants’ emotional

concordance (De Leersynder et al. 2011).

Further, they found that explicit beliefs about acculturation are unrelated to emotional acculturation, suggesting that this process is of an unconscious and implicit psychological nature contingent upon the socio-cultural structures of the host culture (De Leersnyder et al. 2011). These results validate Cottingham’s distinction between emotional processes learned through periods of primary and secondary socialization (De Leersynder et al. 2011; Cottingham 2016).

While unable to definitely posit an explanatory process here, De Leersnyder and

colleagues (2011) suggest the reason for emotional acculturation may be due to a change of environment or a change in appraisal. Notwithstanding, their work reifies the notion that culture comes into emotion through intercultural relationships and interactions (De Leersynder et al. 2011).

While all migrants experience psychological stress associated with the migration process (Portes and Rumbaut 1996; Gutierrez-Vasquez et al. 2018), individuals do not uniformly experience acculturation (Sam and Berry 2010). The conditions under which one moves, the culture from which the migrant comes, and the culture into which one is received are

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but several factors shaping the process (Sam and Berry 2010; Breslau et al. 2011). As previously defined, acculturative stress is a stress response to challenges encountered during the process of acculturation which are not easily resolved by a simple

modification of behavior (Sam and Berry 2010). While Sam and Berry situate it within the affective perspective (2010), the mention of behavioral modification suggests that acculturative stress is borne of the gray area between the affective (psychological) and behavioral (sociocultural) strands of the “ABCs of Acculturation.” Other

socio-demographic forces also work disparately to mitigate or exacerbate acculturative stress depending upon the individual’s social location (Gutierrez-Vasquez, Flippen, and Parrado 2018). High socioeconomic status facilitates the move; as resources, linguistic, economic, and cultural capital all function to ease the acculturative process (Mossakowski 2007; Takeuchi et al. 2010; Gutierrez-Vasquez et al. 2018). Legal status (Gutierrez-Vasquez et al. 2018) and childhood migration (Sam and Berry 2010) can aggravate the stress

process. In like manner, ‘voluntary’ migrants experience approximately half the stress as ‘involuntary’ migrants (Davis et al. 2016)7. The “healthy migrant” hypothesis refers to the tendency of ‘healthier’ migrants (which is to say those with better social,

psychological, and financial resources) to ‘self-select’ for migration (Mossakowski 2007; Lu and Qin 2014; Gutierrez-Vasquez et al. 2018), whereas the “salmon bias” refers to the tendency of migrants with poorer health to return or move closer to their home

communities (Lu and Qin 2014).

Gender also holds an as yet not fully understood role in acculturative stress (Gutierrez-Vasquez et al. 2018). While Asian migrant women are less likely to have mental health issues than their native born counterparts (Takeuchi et al. 2007), female migrants are generally more likely to suffer mental health problems than men (Gutierrez-Vasquez et al. 2018).

The matter of wellbeing is further complicated by Kane’s investigation (2011:266) of the gendered university transition, which supports the notion of implicit “cultural mandates

7_{I acknowledge the arbitrary nature of the term ‘voluntary’ and recognize the existence other less}

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that encourage women to cultivate and manage ties actively.” The network know-how found in these students (some of whom were international) suggests that, while migrant women are more prone to mental health problems, they should be better equipped than men to adapt socially during the acculturation process, forging and maintaining network connections that foster greater social support in the new country (Gutierrez-Vasquez et al. 2018). Suggesting the central importance of social ties, Safi’s (2008) work demonstrates that women migrating to France to family reasons are less likely to be integrated than others, whereas migrating for work often strengthens integration for women.

Taking all of this together suggests that migrant women may experience structural

barriers to socialization (e.g. as a homemaker, low levels of contact with the host society) which serve to exacerbate the mental health outcomes of migrant women as a group at large, but that other individual, collective, and institutional factors at play may protect Asian women from acculturative stress, thus resulting in better reported mental health outcomes. Further research is needed to make any sort of claim.

As seen above, questions of ethnic identity factor into the acculturation process. While experiences of racialized discrimination can exacerbate acculturative stress, social integration in the new country and/or strong identification with one’s cultural heritage may serve to protect against it (Mossakowski 2007; Safi 2008; Gutierrez-Vasquez et al. 2018). As follows, the presence of an ethnic or home country network in the new country may ease the transition by providing the individual with a sense of community and social support (Mossakowski 2007; Safi 2008). While ensconcement in an ethnic network may create distance with the host community by reducing contact with natives (and as such opportunities for perceived discrimination), this network structure can also facilitate the transmission of insider knowledge, e.g. navigation strategies to meet bureaucratic and institutional demands (Mossakowski 2007; Safi 2008).

The importance of social support in the acculturative process, however, is not limited to the maintenance of transnational ties to the home country or to one’s local diaspora group in the host country. While the disruption of one’s social networks may negatively impact wellbeing during the migration process, local social integration, in providing a sense of

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community and belongingness, protects generally against acculturative stress (Gutierrez-Vasquez et al. 2018).

The question of culture carries converse possibilities as protector and aggressor. It has been posited that ‘cultural distance’ between the country of origin and host country can complicate social integration, even result in a ‘conflict of culture’ for the migrant (Gutierrez-Vasquez et al. 2018). Mossakowski (2007) refers to several studies

demonstrating that cultural orientations towards individualism and collectivism affect psychological wellbeing (Markus and Kitayama 1991; Triandis 1993 as cited in

Mossakowski 2007), with one study indicating that individuals from more individualistic societies are more “prone” to emotional stress (Triandis et al. 1988 as cited in

Mossakowski 2007). As such, retention of a collectivistic cultural paradigm, in which individuals are more likely to depend upon social support (Triandis et al. 1988 as cited in Mossakowski 2007), may explain differences in mental health in the case of Filipino immigrants and their U.S. born counterparts, though further research is needed before such a claim can be refuted or confirmed (Mossakowski 2007).

In line with this question of culture enters segmented assimilation theory, which reifies the existence of multiplicitous figurations through which the acculturative process can and does take shape (Mossakowski 2007; Safi 2008). While Safi does not touch on wellbeing, her work on integration in France demonstrates that a universalist application of acculturation falls short, as different groups from different regions experience

integration differently (2008). Further, she calls the notion of ‘cultural distance’ into question, with her results on Portuguese migrants backing Charbit, Hily and Poinard’s study which identifies the maintenance of strong community, cultural, and identitary ties among Portuguese migrants to France, despite the geographic (and thus assumed cultural) proximity between the two countries (Charbit, Hily and Poinard 1997 as cited in Safi 2008; Safi 2008). Safi (2008:26) thus situates the Portuguese case as a “strong

counterexample to any theory of integration that attributes major importance to the role of cultural distance between country of origin and host country.” This same misfit of cultural distance and identitary integration appears in a comparison of Southeast Asian and North African migrants in France, with the first group much more likely to be well

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integrated than the second (Safi 2008). She thus rebuts the tired obsession with ‘cultural distance’ by illustrating that geographic proximity does not necessarily mean a

convergence of cultural values (Safi 2008). Demonstrating the existence of a plurality of integration modes and asserting the need for further research on national origin and migrants’ situations in the new country, Safi’s (2008) use of segmented assimilation theory prompts consideration of the differential and unequally applied structural barriers to integration, which naturally can be extended to consider the impact the individual’s degree of integration into the new country has on wellbeing.

1.6. Research Aims

In the literature review presented in this chapter, it is clear that emotion is glaringly absent in the little sociological research that does address migration and wellbeing. However, as illustrated, the French and Japanese contexts are ruled by distinctly different emotive norms. How, then, are Japanese migrants able to adapt emotionally to these differences? I thus propose the mechanism of emotional capital as a means for understanding wellbeing post-migration.

In this study, I take the case of Japanese migrants in France as a theoretically illustrative case in order to address the following question: How does emotional capital function to

inform the wellbeing of migrants?

This question has been divided into three sub-questions, in order to tease out the role of emotion in informing the wellbeing of migrants:

i) How does acculturative stress function as a push factor (i.e. a driving force) for the acquisition of emotional capital?

ii) How does exposure to culturally specific feeling rules inform the development of new forms of emotional capital?

iii) How does the acquisition of emotional capital transform the emotional habitus, and to what degree?

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The following chapters will detail the methodology undertaken to answer these questions, as well as the theoretical framework that informed this research. Following this, the results of my empirical enquiry will be presented and discussed in relation to the relevant theory and existing body of knowledge on this research. Finally, this thesis will conclude with what can be learned from this project, the sociological worth of exploring these questions, and suggestions for real world application of its findings, as well as avenues of further research opened by this investigation.

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Chapter 2 : Research Methodology

2.1. Methodology

In this section, I present the methodological steps taken to conduct my research. This paper draws on data collected from 2018 to 2019 from eleven Japanese people who have migrated to France. Data collection was conducted in both French and English, according to participants’ preference.8 All eleven respondents participated in in-depth interviews (two of whom were twice interviewed), with ten respondents participating in the survey.

2.2. An Ethical Methodology

It is not easy to penetrate the small network of 30,000 Japanese migrants in France, some of whom are short-term transplants to branches of their companies based in France (France Diplomatie 2018). Furthermore, gaining access to empirical information on topics as sensitive as migration, wellbeing, and emotion is yet another challenge.

In an early response from one association, I was directly confronted with the incredibly sensitive nature of my research, as well as my own clumsy début. I received an email suggesting I not use the phrase ‘mental health,’ as it was “a bit frightening,” but that instead I should word my recruitment materials along the lines of “social integration” or “the effects of immigration in France with respect to the mental aspect of the Japanese.”9 After admitting my faux pas, I thanked her profusely for her feedback, and immediately reformulated my materials explaining the nature of the project. However, I carried this knowledge with me, and as I slowly conducted my interviews, I found a certain reticence to disclose such private information of this nature appear again and again. One

respondent later told me that in Japan, mental health records are not accorded the same

8_{All French data presented was translated by the author. Table 1 notes the language in which}

each participant was interviewed.

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confidentiality as in the American medical system, and that consultation with a mental health professional goes on a record that can be accessed by employers.

Respondents also spoke repeatedly of another social dictate rooted in verbosity. The Japanese, they told me, communicate by “atmosphere,” and that they “suggest” the nature of difficulties faced post-migration. While some were very forthcoming and explicit in our interviews, others gave me vague, sometimes one word answers, a style of

communication one respondent described as like a “tennis match.”

Another ethnical concern arose around the question of language, as well as positionality. Interviewing people in their second language is not nearly as fluid as interviewing people in their native tongue, and as such regularly requires the use of contexualized,

interpretative, ‘best fit’ abductive logic. Because I cannot speak Japanese, I am often left considering the ethical implications of my research due to this imperfect fit of language. Am I the right person for this study?

But even when I conduct my interviews in French, I, too, am wearing my second

language as a second skin, and there is still an element of power involved. If interviewing non-native French speakers in French, our French language skills are automatically pitted against each others’; if interviewing native French speakers in French, my non-native speaker status automatically positions me below the native speaker; and if interviewing native French speakers from French territories, like the DOM-TOMs, therein comes another racialized dynamic of power tied to colonial legacy and GDP.

When I think deeply about these questions of language and positionality, I am left with the conclusion that this is an issue that would arise in any study I might conduct about this subject matter, unless I were to conduct research exclusively on English speaking countries (where, even so, I am not necessarily indoctrinated with the same implicit cultural understanding, as I am American).

Thus, I can either accept the inherently imperfect nature of data collection, or I can limit my exploration to cultures and nations to which much attention has already been devoted.

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Whatever my choice, I in some way participate in an imbalance of power, but I have done my best here to represent my respondents in a culturally sensitive and ethical manner.

Following this, therein comes the further issue of interpretation: what I present here can only be a mere interpretative portrait of my respondents’ emotional landscapes; I cannot speak for them. Further, given the highly subjective and personal nature of each

respondent’s testimony, there is no ‘objective’ truth to be gleaned here.

Another ethical limitation arose regarding my presentation of French norms in the previous chapter. While I did exhaustively search all possible terms about culture, social norms, mentality, migration, etc, in both French and English databases, I found that scholastic material on French norms are but present in their absence. Regarding my own positionality vis-à-vis this structural barrier, I was able to draw on my dual emic and etic perspective (having lived three and half years in France), in order to gauge the validity of the norms described. Firmly ensconced in a dense French network, I was able to dialogue with those close to me if a question arose about the validity of a given norm, thus

allowing me several points of triangulation and crystallization with respect to French norms. Because the scope of this project focused only on Japanese migrants in France, I was unable to substantiate the French norms about which I read through interview with French respondents in the same way I was with Japanese norms and Japanese

respondents. Nevertheless, my dual insider/outsider status nevertheless allowed me to better navigate this.

I now turn to the social and emotional impact of this project, on both myself and my participants. Three of my respondents were found late 2018 and early 2019 through Facebook posts, with mutual friends putting us into contact with one another. It was with two of these respondents that I conducted second interviews, with our first interview sparking friendship, and our second interview decidedly establishing these as rich and mutually satisfying relationships. After one interview with a professor at a Parisian university, I was invited to department drinks where I was introduced to various research assistants, students, and professors, following which came dinner and a night singing

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karaoke. The evening finished with this respondent inviting me to dinner with at his home with his partner upon my next visit to Paris, something I knew to be significant because he had expressed to me that in France, when someone invites you to their home for dinner, it is like saying you are family. That same weekend, I traveled to another French city to conduct a second interview with another respondent, a master’s student at the local university. I interviewed him over drinks, insisting it was my treat, after which we went to his apartment where I was to meet some of his Japanese friends (who unfortunately had to cancel last minute) as well as his circle of French friends. Despite the fact that our second interview was ‘over,’ the data collection process continued as we shared more details of our lives with one another, culminating with a very heartfelt conversation in which we kept mutually thanking one another, with my telling him how our first interview had inspired the entirety of my thesis, and him telling me how valued this made him feel, how it had positively impacted his self worth at a time in which life was rife with the ‘ordinary’ stressors mentioned in Chapter 4.

Both of these people have come to mean so much to me—even writing this leaves me feeling immensely moved, the absolute beauty that the two of them (as well as other participants) have brought to my life not only through their participation in my research project, but in forging this raw, human connection. The very nature of interview requires an enormous amount of trust, requires the respondent to bear to you their secret joys and private pains, and as I transcribed these and other interviews, I came to truly love my participants for sharing with me their personal experiences, for revealing to me things they had not even shared with close friends. I am left with a tremendous amount of respect and compassion for these people.

Though I made every effort to adhere to the ethical standards as described by the University of Amsterdam, after forging these human connections, I feel all the more the duty to and the honor of keeping their secrets, to protect their identities, and to represent their experiences with all the understanding and cultural sensitivity I am able. While I have forged the deepest connections with the two described above, it is important that I note the feeling of wonder with which I was left after each interview—a deep desire to

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maintain and further develop these connections, and as such, I believe this project has led to the beginning of several other beautiful friendships, as respondents and I continue to keep up with each other’s lives.

I could write in this way, convey the depth of my fondness for each respondent individually, because each of their stories has left a lasting impact on me, an impact which only deepened through the processes of transcribing, memo-writing, coding, re-coding, and analysis. This experience has been humbling, humanizing, and so very human. I use the word humanizing deliberately here, for through the research process, I came to understand that I myself possessed unconscious stereotypes about the Japanese ‘mentality,’ and simply knowing my respondents has educated me about the deeply internalized, unreflexive nature of prejudice, innocent as it may be, and how harmful and essentializing the unexamined mind can be in this field. It is for this reason that this thesis rejects hypotheses about ‘cultural distance,’ because I came to understand this as

culturally essentializing; culture certainly shapes experience, but it does not determine whether or not an individual will have a negative or positive experience post-migration. Migration is complicated, nuanced, and while structural barriers related to ‘culture’ do exist that impact the trajectory of an individual’s experience, it is not predictive. One may have internalized a certain mode of thinking, feeling, or behaving, but, at least in the case of my participants, that does not necessarily mean they will have difficulty adjusting or suffer a decline in wellbeing. An early memo borne of this realization sought desperately for a theoretical lynchpin regarding emotional adaptation, and as such, the directionality of this study shifted to a framework of facilitation rather than impediment. I began to investigate the mechanism of emotional capital as a tool to facilitate wellbeing, to navigate cultural demands, and, consequently, render the experience altogether more satisfying. In interviewing my participants, I came to see that ALL of my respondents had flipped the two-sided coin, to at least some degree.

It is thus the mechanism of capital, the resource itself, that feels most theoretically rich, and which will hopefully humanize migrants, will allow us to better understand the emotional journeys on which they depart when leaving their country of origin. Migration

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is challenging, full of ups and downs, and every aspect of the experience transforms the emotional landscape. Furthermore, I would like to reiterate that acculturation is not a uni-directional process; it is a process of cultural and psychological change that shapes both the individuals who arrive into a given country, and the individuals who come to know them (Sam and Berry 2010). The transmission of change is multi-directional. Personally, I feel honored to have been changed by this process.

2.3. Participants’ Selection

Due to the small number (30,000) of Japanese people living in France (France Diplomatie 2018), participant criteria was quite broad. I sought Japanese migrants to France born in Japan, over the age of 18, willing to complete a questionnaire and discuss their

experiences and perceptions of their own migration experience and psychological and emotional wellbeing (in English or in French), and who would consent to being recorded, with the promise that all testimony would be anonymous and confidential.

2.4. The Outreach and Attrition

I first created a GoogleDocs recruitment page detailing the project, my involvement, my target research population, and the project’s compliance with the ethical code established by the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research at the University of Amsterdam and the General Data Protection Regulations of the EU. I shared this from my personal Facebook account with my immediate network, as well as various Facebook pages in which members of my research population could be potentially found (language

institutes, pages related to Japanese culture, Franco-Japanese groups, etc.). I also shared this with the Erasmus group of a previous university I attended in France, which was then circulated by this university’s chapter President of the International Student Network with the larger ISN network.

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I then contacted nearly every association listed on the Japanese Embassy in Paris’ website by email, ‘cold’ emailed Japanese businesses in Paris’ Japanese quarter,10 and created an account on Expat.com to connect with my target population, but received little response, if at all. After sending over one hundred emails, I turned to Instagram as a creative solution, where I began searching hashtags (#JapaneseInFrance,

#JapaneseInParis, #JaponaiseEnFrance, #JaponaisEnFrance, #JaponaiseAParis, etc.), through which I found public accounts and messaged users in either English or French (depending on the prevalence of each language on their profile) with an explanation of who I was, the project, how I’d found their profiles, and a link to the aforementioned recruitment page. Due to the privacy settings of Instagram, however, wherein messages from users one does not follow are received in a separate inbox, the response rate of respondents was entirely dependent upon whether or not they were aware of this second inbox function, and if so, the frequency with which they checked it. I further snowballed my real life social network in France, through which I met French people who had either previously or were currently studying and/or living in Japan. However, because their contacts had either returned to Japan or were not comfortable speaking English or French, this strategy did yield any respondents. Others in my real life social network sent

messages to their contacts on my behalf, but I received no further word.

One of my original participants from a previous project even organized an intercultural party at which I was to meet some of his Japanese friends, however ultimately there were some last minute cancellations, and none of these potential respondents attended. I

attempted the next day to schedule interviews with them, but, departing the following day to travel, they were unable or unwilling to participate.

I also created flyers in both French and English that I intended to distribute in the

Japanese quarter in Paris by knocking door to door at Japanese business, but by this point I was already quite frantic with respect to the massive strain recruitment had become on my timeline. Given the slow means through which snowballing had been unfolding (some potential respondents simply did not respond, while others only did so after a

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gentle follow up email and a week and a half), I ultimately abandoned this strategy due to limitations of time with respect to finishing the data collection process. One respondent who was initially willing to participate (however was not able to due to previously scheduled extended trip to Japan) contacted me upon her return to France about her willingness to participate. However, because the period of data collection had already been stretched to the point of leaving the analysis and writing unfeasible in the amount of time left, I had to decline this interview.

Despite sending out well over one hundred emails and messages, gaining access proved a major limitation. Two potential participants expressed that, given the recent nature of their move, they themselves were still making sense of the process, and did not wish to participate. Others expressed interest, but did not respond to the follow up messages sent. One participant stopped responding the day we were scheduled to meet.

Recruitment proved to be much more complex than initially anticipated, and despite exhaustively mining every conceivable resource, I encountered a staggering rate of attrition. Of the many messages sent, a marginal number of these received a response, with many of the Instagram messages still remaining unopened. Having previously received feedback about my word choice, I often reflected on my own strategies of cultural communication, language skills, and cultural differences surrounding open discussion of wellbeing. With Instagram as my primary vehicle of outreach, I varied the language of my messages, personalized messages, complimented their photos, etc., but this did not change the response rate. As such, this high rate of attrition was a major source of anxiety, but left me constantly reflecting on my own positionality and presentation as a researcher.

While two of my respondents had previously participated in interviews regarding their experiences of migration, and agreed to allow me to re-interview them, I was unable to reconnect with one respondent I had previously interviewed, but from whom I had previously received consent. It was thus primarily through Instagram that I was able to gain further access to my research population, with four contacts accessed through

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Instagram’s hashtag search function, four through mutual friends on Facebook, one through the ‘cold’ emailing method to Japanese businesses, and two the result of snowballing (one through a Facebook respondent, the other through an Instagram respondent).

2.5. Mixing Methods

While many studies have sought to gauge the wellbeing of migrants through survey methods, “quantitatively analyzing the social phenomenon of acculturation is an

extremely complicated matter. Acculturation often involves individual’s subjectivity and can only be brought to light through long, detailed interviews” (Safi 2008:12-13).

Consequently, this study relies primarily on the data gleaned through interview.

However, I chose also to combine interview with survey in an attempt to tease out the variables concretely affecting migrants’ wellbeing, and thus centered the K10

questionnaire as the backbone of my survey11. The K10 questionnaire screens broadly for psychological distress by asking 10 questions about emotional states (Kessler et al. 2002). In addition to having been standardized and validated in English, French, and Japanese, the K10 was selected as it is used in the World Health Organization World Mental Health Composite International Diagnostic Interview (Kessler et al. 2002; Furukawa et al. 2008). After providing general demographic information about age, sex, employment, etc., respondents were asked to evaluate their emotional states during three periods, which were selected in order to gauge the relationship between migration and acculturative stress: (1) 3 months before deciding to move; (2) 3 months after moving; (3) present day. Further questions about prior knowledge of French language and culture, degree of contact with French and Japanese persons, and culture shock and homesickness were included in an attempt to gauge (prior) knowledge of and unfamiliarity with French feeling rules.12 Beginning with the survey served to uniformly probe respondents about

11_{Two versions of this survey, in both French and English, were created using SurveyGizmo.} 12_{In his critique of Swidler’s Talk of Love, Vaisey (2008) demonstrates the limitations of}

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wellbeing and emotion—suggestive, but not insistent, and thus standardized the point of departure for the interview. During pilot testing of my survey, however, website error frequently resulted in responses not being saved. To counteract this, I made responses mandatory, which resolved the issue. While forced choice survey does force respondents to express an opinion, it also encourages deeper processing (Smyth et al. 2006). It should also be noted that in autobiographical survey, memory is subject to failure (Strube 1987). All responses were then compiled in an Excel spreadsheet and compared.

Using participants’ responses to the K10 questionnaire as my starting point, during the interview I sought to explicitly determine whether or not their emotional states were related to the acculturative process (e.g. “I see you reported feeling ‘tired for no reason’ in the three months after your move ‘most of the time.’ Could you tell me about that?”) In this way, the interviews also sought to address a methodological gap: to make explicit the factors affecting participants’ responses to the K10 survey, to explore how and if aspects of psychological distress were indeed linked to culture and migration.

These semi-structured interviews continued based on an interview guide treating the following themes: (1) knowledge of France; (2) language; (3) social support; (4) stress and migration; (5) positive and negative experiences; (6) cultural differences; (7) integration; (8) feelings, mental health, and coping strategies; (8) visiting Japan; (9) personal transformation. Interviews ranged from 32 minutes to 1 hour and 39 minutes in length.

Each method employed was designed to gauge concepts introduced in Chapter 1 and Chapter 3 (an overview of terms can be seen in Chapter 1, Section 2). Wellbeing and acculturative stress were the primary targets of the survey, whereas the interviews sought to build on these topics, and further elicit information about the acquisition of emotional

spontaneously constructing a narrative which does not capture the unconscious level of culture. He suggests people can recognize the ‘right’ answer, but may be unable to articulate exactly what this answer is, rendering the survey quite useful in conjunction with the follow up interview (Vaisey 2008).

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capital through exposure to host country feeling rules and the process of transformation of the emotional habitus.

2.6. Participant Demographics

In order to make their stories more personal, I used the website Name Generator Fun to randomly assign names to respondents, which allows for Japanese name generation lists according to sex. I did this for both male and female respondents, starting with the first respondent of each category and moving down the list. Only one male name (Yuu) was omitted due to its written similarity to the name before it (Yuuta). Table 1 presents the demographic information of this study’s participants, in descending order of date of survey participation, with the last respondent listed not having participated in the survey.

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Table 1 Pseudonym Age1 _Sex _{Years in}

France2 Language Civil Status3 Education Employment Status Culture Shock Reason for Move4 Permanent Move5

Shiori 25 Female 3* French Single* Bachelor Student Yes School ? Daichi 51 Male 27 French Single* Master Employed Yes School ? Sakura 32 Female 3* English Divorced Associate Unemployed Yes Relationship ? Shou 36 Male 8 English Married Secondary Employed Yes Beauty ? Yuuta 46 Male 18 French Married Master Employed Yes School Yes Ryuu 37 Male 9 English Single* Doctorate Employed No Work Yes Ami 43 Female 2 English Married Vocational.training Unemployed Yes Relationship Yes Mizuki 34 Female 2* French Single Bachelor Student No School ? Tatsuya 26 Male 3 English Single Bachelor Student Yes Relationship No Kaeda 43 Female 18 French Divorced Doctorate Employed Yes Work Yes Nanako* ₄₂ _{Female 3*} _French _Married _N/A _N/A _Yes _Relationship _N/A

*_{Respondent did not participate in the survey. Responses have been filled in based on the interview data.} 1_{Year of birth was collected; as such, this category reflects the age respondents will be by the end of 2019.}

2_{Year of move was collected; as such, this category reflects the duration of stay by the beginning of 2019. Respondents with an asterisk (*) previously lived}

abroad before moving to France.

3_{Respondents with an asterisk (*) are currently in a relationship not reflected by their civil status.}

4_{For this category, respondents were given the option of choosing between “Work,” “School,” “Relationship,” or supplying their own response.} 5_{For this category, the question mark (?) indicates uncertainty.}

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In addition to the broad demographic information captured by Table 1, there remain a few more details of interest. Six of the eleven interviews were conducted in person, four by video call, and one by audio call. The language skill of all respondents has improved, except in the case of Ami. While I did ask about the frequency of contact with persons both French and Japanese, this measure proved to be ill-suited to measuring the depth of contact, as evidenced by Ami’s case; despite interacting with French people on a daily basis, her language skills have not improved, both because she and her husband speak English together, and because she has become a homemaker since moving to France. All respondents, with the exception of Ami, have visited Japan since moving to France. Nanako’s case represents the salmon bias in action; she moved back to Japan after two difficult years teaching Japanese in France. Only one respondent, Kaeda, reported ever consulting a mental health professional, which she did so while writing her doctoral thesis.

2.7. Data Analysis

All interviews were recorded and transcribed,13 after which the analysis was then approached with the “informed theoretical agnosticism” described by Timmermans and Tavory (2012:169), which combines the same heuristics of coding and memo-writing borrowed from grounded theory with an ongoing cyclical dialogue between data and literature at each level of analysis. The data was subject to several rounds of coding both with Atlas.ti and by hand.

I first coded my transcripts with Atlas.ti, taking a grounded theory approach and allowing the data to speak for itself, but I found myself becoming distracted by data unrelated to my research questions. This first round of coding, as such, is not an accurate

representation of my final coding scheme. In abductive fashion, I then returned to the literature to reorient myself, thus allowing a mutually informative conversation to flow back and forth between the data and the literature (Timmermans and Tavory 2012). This round of refamilarization thus led me to three main codes (Timmermans and Tavory

13_{Unfortunately, one interview was lost due to an as yet unexplained recording error, though the}

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2012): (1) stress, (2) emotional capital, and (3) transformation, all of which contain different subthemes.

After printing all transcripts, I coded by hand according to these codes. After this, I translated the French data related to my research questions from French into English. I then condensed the relevant portions of data into two files (one for English, one for translated French). I first began coding the French file in varying highlighted colors according to the 3 main codes mentioned above, but after (re)coding this file, I ultimately ended up printing the English and translated French files and again (re)coded according to the three main codes, cutting the data into pieces and annotating the separate pieces as the process proceeded. The segmented physicality of the pieces allowed me to arrange and rearrange the analytic backdrop with ease, and most importantly, allowed me to interact tangibly and visually with the data in a way more conducive to my mode of processing.

After this round of coding, I then created a Word Document for each main code, in which I included shorthand phrases, summary explanation, and more detailed sections of

analysis for key quotations. I then selected the most theoretically illustrative portions of the data in order to answer the aforementioned research questions.

The analysis thus focused on stressors related to the migration process, exposure to French feeling rules through social interaction and language, and with it, acquisition of new forms of emotional capital through practice, and feelings of dissonance between home country norms and respondents’ behavior in France. In the next chapter, I explore these theoretical concepts in depth, following which, I present the findings of this analysis.