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.

由在沙特阿拉伯的英语外籍教师进行的人种学定性研究的通知，我们在跨国活动的背景下研究了文化和制度上的紧张局势下的情感劳动。结合广泛的关于情感和情感的跨学科文献，我们讨论了跨国情感劳动在四个相互关联的表现形式中的地位：（a）与学生互动和沟通的斗争和努力；（b）内部化和不满以母语为母语的人的话语所固有的特权和不足；（c）应对来自社会，宗教和文化差异的挑战；（d）持久的承受力，挫败感，无助感以及对规定的课程，测试以及自上而下的政策和实践的抵制。当我们参与参与者的陈述时，我们还将自己的思考和情感劳动纳入了受过跨国培训的学者中。我们展示了我们的研究如何激发与自我的对话以及研究人员之间的对话，以超越种族，语言，宗教，种族和国籍的既定界限来提供支持和团结。