Studying Intimacies that Matter: Affective Assemblages in Research Interviews with Forced Migrants

Abstract

This article explores methodological challenges in studying intimacies through analysing affective assemblages in research interviews. The participants in this study are forced migrants trying to reunite with their transnational families. Building on scholarship where affect is considered precognitive, meaning that it happens prior to emotions, this article approaches affective knowledge through methodological exploration. The analysis explores two research encounters from a data set which include interviews with 55 forced migrants in Finland, some of which were done together with a research assistant working as a translator. In addition, data include the researcher’s notes on re-listening to six interviews. The research question is how affect influences research interview situations and what effects these affective assemblages have on all involved. Additionally, the interest is in what these assemblages reveal about empathy and difference. The results show that intimate relations may manifest through a shared, intense affective assemblage where the borders of the researcher and participant become blurred. Difficult experiences of losses and injustices in the realm of intimacies may also cause affective dissonance. In these research encounters, difference between the researcher(s) and the participant(s) is left unsolved. The unresolved difference may reveal power relations between the researcher and participant.