Biannual Journal

This research aims to discover the migrants' emotions towards host community and to describe their emotional valence. Relying on qualitative research logic, 11 Afghan migrants were selected using theoretical sampling for in-depth interviews. Emotional valence of their relationships was drawn from narratives of research participants using coding techniques inspired by psychology and sociology of emotions in a given conceptual framework (especially Plutchik, Turner and kemper).

Findings showed that firstly, the negative (cold) emotions were more evident than positive (warm) ones; secondly, the positive sentiment was not as stable as negative sentiment; thirdly, lack of proper power, lack of functional social status, mistrust and negative view towards host community resulting in continued cold emotions between migrants and host community were discovered. In general it seems that combination of aforementioned feelings uncovers two social realities: first, migrants have failed in meeting their own expectations and verifying themselves and secondly they see that there is no way to change the situation. In a situation like this fragile relationships, weakened social Solidarity and lack of social commitments prevails.