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Emotion labor and affect in transnational encounters: Insights from Western-trained TESOL professionals in Saudi Arabia
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Abstract:
Informed by an ethnographic qualitative research study conducted with expatriate teachers of English in
Saudi Arabia, we examine emotion(al) labor in the context of transnational mobilities with regards to cultural
and institutional tensions. Engaged with wide-ranging interdisciplinary literature on emotion and affect, we
discuss the place of transnational emotion(al) labor in four inter-related manifestations: (a) struggles and
efforts to interact and communicate with students; (b) internalization and resentment of privilege and
deficiency underlying discourses of native speakers; (c) responses to challenges from social, religious, and
cultural difference; and (d) prolonged endurance, frustration, helplessness, and resistance to prescribed
curriculum, testing, and top-down policy and practice. We also incorporate our reflections and emotion(al)
labor as transnationally trained academics as we engage with the participants’ accounts. We show how our
study could inspire dialogues with the self and conversations among researchers for support and solidarity
beyond constructed boundaries of race, language, religion, ethnicity, and nationality.
Description:
Date:
2020
Authors:
Abdullah Alshakhi
Phan Le Ha
Publisher:
Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Institute of Education (SHBIE)
