engleski

In the search of migrants' identity through the analysis of emotions in pre-recorded interviews – the case of Croats in New Zealand

The National Library of New Zealand holds over 10, 000 recordings within the Oral History and Sound collection, while some other institutions across the country also hold noteworthy masses of oral history recordings. Their secondary analysis presents serious methodological challenges, as a consequence of inconsistencies among collections (different researchers and approaches in terms of the methodology used, unknown meetings' details and lack of information about the relationship between interviewers and interviewees, lack of information about research projects within which interviews were made, and the impossibility of non-verbal communication analysis). Despite all of these inconveniences, we claim they still represent an invaluable source for the research, particularly in the history of emotions perspective. The main goal of our research is to explore the role of emotions in the development of transnational migrant communities, through the research of the history of Croatian community in New Zealand, which dates back to the 19th Century. Emotions will be approached as the basis of migrants' identities. The research will draw on Barbara Rosenwein’s concept of ‘emotional community’ and try to identify core emotions that construct group identity. We will draw on William Reddy’s concept of emotional regimes as well, while we plan to analyze the words used by interviewees to describe their experiences. We will also draw on Monique Scheer concept of emotional styles. The aforementioned methodological shortcomings of the use of pre- recorded interviews we will tacle by creating the matrix with details about all interviews, putting special emphasis on the form and content of (non)verbalised emotions. The presentation will be based on the sample of 10-15 interviews conducted with the first and subsequent generations of Croatian migrants. The number of interviews which will be used depends on their accessibility, while it's not possible to travel to New Zealand due to COVID-19. However, a number of institutions in New Zealand are providing remote access to digitised collections.

oral history, diaspora, Croats, New Zealand, Emotions

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