Abstract
This study explores the emotional experiences of individuals attending diaspora festivals using guided interviews of members of the Ethiopian diaspora. A constructivist grounded theory method was applied and a conceptual model comprised of emotional experiences was created. The findings demonstrated five main emotional experiences associated with diaspora festivals: happiness (the most common), pride, arousal, feeling at home, and feeling not lonely. The study confirmed that feeling at home and not lonely were emotions that were unique to diaspora festivals. The study also identified various specific emotion evokers, including homeland atmosphere, homeland people, religious activities, and the availability of the festival. Key theoretical and practical implications include constructing the diaspora festival emotional experience model, broadening our understanding of hedonic well-being, and incorporating the perspectives of contemporary African migrants, all of which can inform marketing strategies, policy development, and societal problem-solving.
Keywords
Introduction
Festivals generate substantial economic benefits for residents, event organizers, and other stakeholders, and they also help build destination image, catalyze tourism development, and reduce tourism seasonality. Traveling for celebrations is a major global phenomenon, allowing tourists to socialize, learn, and have fun (Packer & Ballantyne, 2011). Most importantly, festivals provide an essential opportunity for tourists to have positive emotional experience (J. Lee, 2014; J. Lee & Kyle, 2012, 2013) and improve their subjective well-being (Yu et al., 2022a). For example, some studies have revealed that tourists visiting festivals experience positive emotions (hedonic well-being) and eudemonic well-being (Filo & Coghlan, 2016; Neuhofer et al., 2020).
In the general emotion scholarship, emotion has been studied as a predictor of satisfaction and positive behavioral intention (S. Lee & Jeong, 2009; Tuerlan et al., 2021; Yang et al., 2011). Motivation to visit an event, activities during participation, and post-event activities arguably consist of emotional experiences. This suggests that helping tourists experience more positive emotions before, during, and after their visit ensures the festival’s continuity, since satisfied visitors are more likely to return to a festival. Such emotional experiences may be more significant to immigrants than host people for three reasons: (1) immigrants experience more negative emotions in their everyday lives – the sources of emotions such as loneliness, anger, regret, and sadness include social exclusion, discrimination, and prejudice (Djundeva & Ellwardt, 2020; Hassanli et al., 2020, 2021; (2) events can be considered a manifestation of their identity (Laing & Frost, 2013), therefore, participating in such circumstances can go beyond experiencing positive emotion (McClinchey, 2021); and (3) they help diasporas counterbalance their everyday negative emotional experiences and foster their well-being (Hassanli et al., 2020).
We conducted a thorough literature review on emotional experience in tourism and festivals. Our reviews indicated four main research gaps and provided the rationale for the current study. First, despite recognizing emotion as a core festival and tourism experience and investigating its role in predicting satisfaction and behavioral intention, the specific antecedents of emotions elicited in festivals are not well studied. Volo (2021) noted that tourism scholars focused more on the consequences of emotion than its stimuli, indicating that insufficient attention has been given to investigating the causes of emotion in tourism and events. This has limited our knowledge of how event organizers should design and operate festivals to initiate these emotions. Second, emotion has been studied in the tourism and hospitality field mainly using questionnaire surveys and interviews (Tuerlan et al., 2021) and some models such as destination emotion, festival emotion, and Pleasure-Arousal-Dominance (PAD). This might have, on one hand, limited our understanding of how each emotion is elicited and, on the other hand, led researchers to make incomplete and inaccurate conclusions. Hence, further studies are necessary to provide a comprehensive explanation of how festival attendance and participation in tourism activities create emotional experiences.
Third, emotion has been studied as an outcome and measure of subjective well-being and positive psychology. In terms of subjective well-being, the level of happiness individuals experience represents well-being or satisfaction in life (Diener, 1984; Yu et al., 2022b), whereas, in positive psychology, positive emotion represents one of the building blocks of a person’s well-being (Seligman, 2018; Vada et al., 2020). As a result, festival scholars investigating emotions through the lens of subjective well-being tend to have limitations in providing detailed explanations and identifying individual emotional experiences because they mainly adopt a positivist approach. Others who investigate it through positive psychology also have limitations because emotion is not the only issue; they need to provide evidence of the other components of well-being, including meaning in life, sense of achievement, engagement, and positive relationships. This indicates that few attempts have been made to investigate emotion as a well-being outcome using a qualitative research approach.
Fourth, when specific events, such as diaspora festivals, are considered, inquiries into the emotional experiences of attendees remain scarce. Although some reports from the return travel emotional experiences literature have shown that return travel reinforced diasporas’ experience of emotions such as nostalgic memory, affective arousal, love, happiness, feeling connected, and social connection (Otoo et al., 2021; Zou et al., 2021), little is known about the emotional experiences elicited in diaspora festivals. In addition, most emotion-related studies have targeted non-ethnic festivals and non-migrant attendees. Emotion measurement scales applicable to diaspora festivals have not been developed. As a result, diaspora event organizers cannot measure festival attendees’ emotional experiences, which may be valuable in assessing satisfaction, future behavior, and event success. Since these forms of festivals have unique features and immigrants’ perspectives are different from those of non-immigrant festival participants, research targeting such events and the migrant population would help to broaden the existing knowledge of emotion, well-being, and festivals. Diaspora festivals differ from other types of festivals in light of their ability to attract migrant attendees (Laing & Frost, 2013; McClinchey, 2021), their dependence on the involvement of homeland governments (Y. Fu et al., 2014), the influence of attendees’ acculturation and assimilation stage on their participation level (Le et al., 2015), and their impacts on migrant attendees, the host city, and the homeland’s tourism development (Yu et al., 2022a).
This study targeted Ethiopian diaspora community festivals for three reasons. First, Ethiopians are the second largest African immigrant group in the US (IOM, 2018) who have left their homeland for reasons including education, family reunion, political instability, civil war, natural disaster, and economic issues since the 1960s (Atnafu & Adamek, 2016; Chacko & Cheung, 2011; Idris, 2015). They thus represent contemporary African migrants and migrants who left their homeland for push and pull factors. Second, Ethiopian diasporas celebrate several unique cultural events, including two UNESCO-inscribed intangible heritages that have never been the focus of event and tourism scholars. Investigating the emotional experiences at these events will allow scholars and international organizations to understand the importance of diasporas in preserving global heritages. Third, in line with this, the investigation focuses on the role of global intangible heritage in migrants’ well-being. This study was therefore conducted to achieve two primary research objectives: (1) to explore diaspora festival attendees’ emotional experiences and (2) to identify diaspora festivals’ emotional experience stimulants. The study has theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, it contributes to broadening the existing body of knowledge about emotion in general by introducing emotions elicited in diaspora festivals, challenging existing tourism and even emotion measurement scales, and introducing contemporary African migrants’ perspectives (which have been under-researched). Understanding individuals’ emotional responses to stimuli is essential when designing appropriate marketing strategies, developing social and developmental policies, and addressing society’s critical problems.
Literature Review
Emotion Measurement Approaches in Tourism and Festival Studies
Emotion refers to an individual’s psychological response to an external stimulus that s/he experiences (Tuerlan et al., 2021). It represents affective experience, though it also refers to feelings and involves cognitive and behavioral experiences (S. Li et al., 2015). Scholars use open-ended questions or scaled emotion measurement items to measure emotion. Tourists’ emotional response has been measured using self-report and psychophysiological measures (S. Li et al., 2015, 2018). Despite its limitation in accurately capturing emotional reactions due to its exposure to cognitive intervention and socially desirable responses, the self-report scale is one of the most-used measures in research on tourists’ emotional experiences because of its low cost and timeliness (Hosany & Gilbert, 2010; Kim & Fesenmaier, 2015; S. Li et al., 2015). Self-report measures are applied using either categorical or dimensional approaches.
Categorical Emotion Measurement Approach
The categorical approach views emotions as having universal and biological aspects that classify them as primary and secondary. Some of the widely recognized theories, such as the differential emotion scale (DES), emotion profile index (EPI), and consumption emotion set (CES), categorize emotions into ten, eight, and thirteen descriptors respectively (Richins, 1997). Anger, fear, joy, and surprise were identified in all models, and guilt, shame, contempt, sadness, and distrust were validated in two theories. Interest and disgust were unique to DES; acceptance and expectancy to EPI; and discontent, worry, loneliness, peacefulness, optimism, eagerness, excitement, romantic love, love, envy, pride, and relief to CES. Laros and Steenkamp (2005) extended the CES using a hierarchical approach and found four negative and two positive significant primary emotion descriptors.
Tourism scholars have developed emotion measurement scales relying on these models. The most notable measurements are the destination emotion scale (Hosany & Gilbert, 2010), the consumption emotion measurement model for the restaurant industry (Han et al., 2010), and the festival consumption emotion model (J. Lee & Kyle, 2012, 2013). The destination emotion scale consists of only three basic emotion descriptors, while the festival consumption emotion set contains another negative emotion set. The emotion measurement model applicable to restaurants consists of excitement, comfort, annoyance, and romance (Han et al., 2010). The destination emotion scale has been validated in various settings (Hosany, 2012; Hosany et al., 2015).
J. Lee and Kyle (2012) proposed a six-dimensional festival consumption emotion model. As shown in Table 1, this model merged two positive emotions (happiness and contentment) (Laros & Steenkamp, 2005). The merged factors were renamed joy. The researchers also removed one negative (shame) and one positive (pride) emotion, and proposed a new emotion of surprise, introducing a six-dimensional festival emotion scale (see Table 1). However, a year later, J. Lee and Kyle (2013) reduced this scale to four dimensions by merging all three negative emotion sub-dimensions. These four dimensions are love (caring, loving, and compassion), joy (happy, pleased, glad, delighted, and contented), surprise (surprised and astonished), and hostility.
Emotion Measurement Models Applicable to Tourism and Festival Studies.
Source. Compiled by the researchers.
Researchers have considered emotional experience as uni-dimensional and multi-dimensional. The multi-dimensional measures help to assess the relationship of each emotion category with various constructs. For example, Rodríguez-Campo et al. (2022) found that love and joy enhanced social identification, and all emotion dimensions, including surprise, affected the satisfaction of visitors to the Vilalba International Festival in Spain positively. By contrast, the uni-dimensional measures allow testing of the relationship between emotion (in general) and other constructs. For instance, T. H. Lee and Chang (2017) and Rodríguez-Campo et al. (2020) used only one dimension to identify the predictor and outcomes of emotion. T. H. Lee and Chang (2017) found facilities and programs to be antecedents of happiness and festival identity to be its consequence, while Rodríguez-Campo et al. (2020) found that hedonism (delight, enjoyment, and getaway) enhanced the value of satisfaction at a religious festival (i.e., A Festa do Boi).
Dimensional Approaches in Tourism and Festival Studies
Contrary to the categorical approach, dimensional theorists believe everyday emotions are not fundamental or subtle; instead, they propose complex, compound emotional states (Kim & Fesenmaier, 2015). The PAD paradigm and positive and negative affect schedule (PANAS) are commonly adapted dimensional theories of emotion. The PAD model is a three-dimensional emotion model useful for measuring emotions elicited in response to environmental stimuli (S. Li et al., 2015). Pleasure is an indicator of valence, measured using scales of extreme happiness–extreme unhappiness, pleased–annoyed, happy–unhappy, and satisfied–unsatisfied (Bakker et al., 2014). Arousal refers to the degree of excitement, stimulation, or alerting in the situation, and dominance denotes the feeling of control over a situation. Some studies (Kim & Fesenmaier, 2015; S. Li et al., 2015) noted that PAD is possibly one of the most widely adopted emotion theories in tourism and hospitality research. PANAS puts emotional states into two categories: negative and positive (Watson et al., 1988). Positive descriptors include enthusiastic, interested, determined, excited, inspired, alert, active, strong, proud, and attentive. Negative emotional state descriptors include fear, anxiety, upset, disturbed, jittery, nervousness, shame, guilt, irritability, and hostility.
Some studies have used the PAD model to measure festival emotions (Carneiro et al., 2019; Song et al., 2019) and explain group-specific emotion descriptors (Filo & Coghlan, 2016). For example, Song et al. (2019) measured pleasure using emotions such as joyful, cheerful, happy, excited, astonished, and pleased, and dominance using emotions such as confident, flexible, and proactive. Carneiro et al. (2019) used bi-polar measurement scales to measure arousal, including sleepy–wide awake, unaroused–aroused, and sluggish–frenzied, and measured pleasure as unhappy–happy, bored–relaxed, unsatisfied–satisfied, annoyed–pleased, and melancholic–contented. These two studies highlighted the significant effect of arousal and enjoyment on the overall satisfaction of festival attendees. Y. K. Lee et al. (2008) adopted PANAS to examine the mediating role of upbeat (pleased, satisfied, excited, and energetic) and negative (bored, sleepy, annoyed, and angry) emotions on festival attributes and satisfaction and loyalty. They found that features such as program content, information, and food positively affected positive emotions, while only staff and facilities affected negative emotions.
None of the measurement scales discussed above have been adopted in the context of diaspora festivals, for two plausible reasons. First, diaspora festivals possess unique features which distinguish from those of other forms of festivals primarily because they attract attendees who are migrants and possess diverse features and interests (Laing & Frost, 2013; McClinchey, 2021). Additionally, the organization of these festivals often requires the homeland government or artists active participation (Y. Fu et al., 2014). The level of individuals’ involvement in these festivals is influenced by factors such as their acculturation preference, assimilation stage, and migration history (T. E. Li et al., 2020). It is important to note that the previously identified determinants that influence the festival experience may not be sufficient in the context of diaspora festivals. Furthermore, these festivals play significant roles not only in individuals’ lives and the host city, but also in promoting the homeland’s tourism and preserving its cultural heritage (Yu et al., 2022b). Hence, none of the above measurement scales may apply to them.
Second, few studies have focused on diaspora festival attendees’ emotional experiences. Therefore, it is worth researching diaspora emotional experiences now and, in the future, to address the existing research gap.
Evokers of Emotional Experiences in Festivals
Even though most studies have focused on examining the effect of emotion on satisfaction and behavioral intention, some inquiries have identified the factors that stimulate emotions in tourism destinations and events. Tuerlan et al. (2021) categorized the antecedents of emotional tourism experiences into external stimuli, cognitive evaluation, and appraisals. In their review, the authors found that tourism scholars had studied the attributes of built environments (22 studies), such as dining atmosphere; social environments (4 studies), such as crowding, marketing stimuli; and natural environment as stimulants of emotions. Hosany (2012) reported pleasantness, goal congruence, certainty, novelty, and self-compatibility as determinants of tourist emotional responses. Lu et al. (2017) studied the effect of physical and sacred stimuli in evoking awe. They found that the sanctity of religious ambiance and the vastness of the natural environment positively affected awe, which, in turn, reinforced feelings of satisfaction in tourists. In festival settings, scholars examined the effect of festival attributes and some constructs on emotion (see Table 2). For example, J. S. Lee et al. (2011) found that festival attributes such as festival products, convenient facilities, and natural environment positively affected emotional value.
Emotion Evokers in the Festival.
Source. Compiled by the researchers.
Diaspora Festival and Emotional Experiences
Despite the lack of studies specifically examining emotional experiences during diaspora festivals, some scholars have explored the emotions elicited during participation in these events and during return travel to the homeland (Filep et al., 2022; Otoo et al., 2021; Zou et al., 2021). For example, Abbasian and Lundberg (2020) found “happy/happiness,” followed by hope, peace, love, and warmth as the main elicited emotions and “a sense that spring is coming,” “pride/proud,” “childhood/nostalgia,” and “community and belonging” as the least elicited emotions during the Persian Fire festival. Zou et al. (2021) found nostalgic memory and affective arousal to be Chinese diaspora tourists’ emotional experiences. Wonderful memories, missing their hometown and remembering past times represented nostalgic memory. They also found that emotional experiences enhanced homeland attachment in diaspora tourists. Otoo et al. (2021) tested the effect of love, joy, surprise, and unpleasantness on personal involvement and found a significant impact of love and joy. Filep et al. (2022) found that Sierra Leonean diasporic tourists experienced love as a motivator, manifested in terms of traveling to show commitment to family and cultural heritage, as an onsite experience reflected in terms of enhancing homeland attachment, and as an outcome when tourists felt emotionally satisfied.
Ethiopian Diaspora, Migration, and Festivals
Ethiopians, next to Nigerians, are the second largest African immigrant group in the US. They were estimated to number 305,800 in 2016 (IOM, 2018). Among these immigrants, adults (36–64 years), the very young (below 18), young (18–35), and elders (above 65) were represented in percentages of 37%, 33%, 27%, and 4%, respectively. About 50% had jobs, with an annual median income of $41,357, the second lowest income received by immigrant groups in the US. However, more than 60% of these Ethiopian diasporas held an associate degree or above, which is similar to the educational attainment of the general US population. Many live in Virginia, Maryland, Washington DC, California, Minnesota, Atlanta, and Texas (Migration Policy Institute, 2014). Their reasons for leaving Ethiopia included education, family reunion, political instability, civil war, natural disaster, and economics (in search of a better life through diversity visas [DVs]) since the 1960s (Atnafu & Adamek, 2016; Chacko & Cheung, 2011; Idris, 2015).
The increased numbers of immigrants in some specific places and the presence of transnational institutions have allowed them to celebrate two forms of festivals in the US: transnational and ethnic migrant festivals. The transnational festivals are Timket and Meskel, which are religious and national holidays and UNESCO intangible heritages. The former is a 3-day event celebrated every year from January 18 to 20 to commemorate the baptism of Jesus. The latter is a 1-day annual feast celebrated on September 26 to commemorate the finding of the True Cross.
Two notable hallmark events, Ethiopian Day and the Ethiopian Sports and Cultural Festival, are well known among Ethiopian Americans. Ethiopian Day is a gathering to celebrate the Ethiopian New Year, every year during the first 10 days of September, in all US states, including Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia (DMV area), Dallas, Texas, Seattle, Atlanta, and Minnesota. Ethiopian community centers serve as the organizers of this festival. For instance, the Ethiopian community center in Silver Spring has been particularly effective in organizing Ethiopian Day festival over the past 7 to 8 years, every first Sunday in September. During the day, attendees visit more than 40 vendors or booths, including Montgomery College, souvenir shops, fashion designer shops, food and beverage booths, philanthropists, media, and religious organizations. The Ethiopian Day held on September 5, 2021, featured a dance performance, a fashion show, a traditional music performance, speeches from the congressman for Montgomery County and other guests, and musical performances from famous Ethiopian singers, such as Aregahagn Worash.
The Ethiopian Sports and Cultural Festival is a week-long event that attracts thousands of Ethiopians across the US and Canada. This event started in 1984 as a soccer festival but was eventually scaled up by including cultural programs and exhibitions. The Ethiopian Soccer Federation in North America (ESFNA) organizes this festival. Unlike other diaspora events, this festival has no fixed location; every year, different states place a bid to host the event. Therefore, festival attendees travel from one state to another every year. Thus far, the Ethiopian Sports and Cultural Festival has been held in 25 states in the US and Canada combined.
Methodology
Research Design
This study was guided by a constructivist grounded theory method (CGT), one of the three types of grounded theory that also includes Classical and Straussian (Charmaz, 2008b; Kenny & Fourie, 2015; Matteucci & Gnoth, 2017). Like the other two, CGT is: (1) an inductive, iterative, comparative, and emergent qualitative approach (Charmaz, 2008b); (2) both a method and analysis technique crucial to building a middle-range substantive theory that can eventually become a full-range theory (Charmaz, 2017); (3) known for its openness throughout the inquiry and its focus on local needs, flexibility, and power in explaining a social phenomenon (Charmaz, 2008b; Matteucci & Gnoth, 2017); and (4) characterized by constant comparison, theoretical sampling, memo writing, and theory generation (Kenny & Fourie, 2015).
However, CGT differs from classical and Straussian theory in terms of philosophical stance, coding practice, and literature review timing (Charmaz, 2008a, 2017; Hunter et al., 2011; Kenny & Fourie, 2015). For instance, CGT believes in realistic assumptions, whereas pragmatists and constructivists embrace critical realism and the relativism of ontological assumptions, respectively (Charmaz, 2008a; Junek & Killion, 2012). Furthermore, classical GT is objectivist and positivist, while constructivists are subjectivist in their epistemological stance (see Table 3). As a result, the proponents of classical grounded theory advocate that the literature review should be conducted after data collection and analysis, to free researchers from preconceptions and enable the discovery of new theories (Charmaz, 1996; Glaser & Strauss, 1999). By contrast, critical realists and relativists believe that preconceptions and the influence of researchers are inevitable. CGT is sensitive to how contextual factors, such as time, place, and culture, influence the research process, and a researcher can subjectively interpret data (Charmaz & Thornberg, 2021; Mills et al., 2006). In terms of coding procedure, Straussians claim that the later versions of grounded theory differ from the original version (Walker & Myrick, 2006).
Comparison Between the Three Types of GT.
Source. Compiled by the researchers.
This study uses CGT for three reasons. First, it allows the researcher to construct middle-range theory by giving a higher level of freedom to interpret phenomena subjectively and explain a socially constructed reality (Charmaz, 2008b; Huang et al., 2023; Matteucci & Gnoth, 2017). Second, it answers research questions such as “what” and “how.” The main research question of this study was, “What did you feel when you attended this event? And what activities caused those emotional experiences?” CGT is sensitive to how contextual factors, such as time, place, and culture, influence the research process. Third, CGT addresses the drawbacks of other versions of GT. The original GT has been criticized for its rigidity, for preventing researchers from conducting literature reviews before the data collection, its claims to generate theories, and its lack of reflexibility. The updated GT version proposed by Strauss and Corbin was also criticized for its coding strategy (which discourages creativity from researchers) (Kenny & Fourie, 2015), reduced reliance on emergence (Charmaz, 2008b), and lack of storytelling. The latest GT version, which has been gaining increasing acceptance among scholars, not only addresses these limitations but also offers higher adaptability and dynamism. This study, therefore, follows a research design and process as presented in Figure 1 and discussed in detail below.
Research framework and process.
Sampling, Data Collection, and Analysis
The study recruited 46 participants using snowball and convenience sampling techniques. The snowball sampling method was used to recruit 2020 Timket, 2019 Meskel, and 2019 ESFNA festival attendees for two reasons: first, there was no or little information about attendees; and second, the interviewer had little knowledge about the attendees and did not attend these events in person. According to Daymon and Holloway (2011) and Noy (2008), snowball sampling is a useful method when researchers are unable to identify suitable informants for their studies. Hence, the first author used his personal contacts and social network to identify the first interviewees for the two religious festival attendees, and a recommendation via ESFNA board members for ESFNA attendees. The second and following interviewees were then recruited from the recommendations of the first and following interviewees. The study used common and situational criteria as part of the selection process. The common criteria included attendance at one of these three events. Additional criteria included gender, age, generation, participation type, residence, and leading responses. In total, 8 non-research participants referred 15 participants for the interviews, and 9 of these 15 interviewees referred a further 18.
A convenience sampling technique was then applied to recruit and interview six Ethiopian Day festival and seven Meskel festival attendees on September 5 and 26, 2021, respectively (the shaded rows in Table 4). The interviews at the former event helped in obtaining data representing this event’s participants, while the latter aimed at theoretical sampling and triangulating off-site attendees’ data. Given that interview summaries and initial analyses were conducted during these events, the samples recruited from these two festivals were used as theoretical samples. In both celebrations, the first author selected participants when the events were near closing, considering diversity in gender and age. Next, the interviewer interviewed those willing to participate. The interviewer asked about their willingness first and interviewed only those who were keen to participate. Table 4 presents the profiles of 45 respondents, each assigned pseudonym.
Respondents’ Profile.
The study used guided interviews and post-interview questionnaires to obtain primary data from participants. The key questions for the guided interview included “What did you feel when you attended? And what activities did you perform during your participation?” The research objectives directed these interview questions; the first and second, respectively, matched the first and second objectives of the study. In addition, to triangulate the data, the researcher asked questions such as “How would you feel if you did not attend? What did you feel when you could not attend the festival over the past one or two years?” Due to the fear of the spread of COVID-19, the off-site interviews were conducted face to face, via Zoom meetings, and through phone conversation in Amharic and English, relying on respondents’ preferences. When researchers have limited access to their subjects, online interviews become more suitable than face-to-face interviews (Savin-Baden & Howell Major, 2013). The post-interview questionnaire was designed on Qualtrics to obtain respondents’ demographic profiles, migration history, and festival experience data immediately after each interview. The questions were adapted from diaspora tourism and festival experience literature (T. E. Li et al., 2020; Shuval, 2000).
Audio-recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim for translation and analysis. The Amharic interviews were translated into English, considering cultural differences (Charmaz, 2014). After editing, the researcher shared 11 translated transcripts with the respondents for confirmation. Eight respondents confirmed that these transcripts accurately reflected the information they shared during the interviews. Three did not reply to the request.
Transcribed data were entered into NVivo and coded line by line, word by word, and sentence by sentence (Bryant, 2014; Charmaz & Belgrave, 2019). The first author used interviewees’ words, phrases, and expressions in this initial coding stage. In addition, the initial codes were described using gerund (Charmaz, 2008a). After finishing the first round of open coding, the authors read the codes and the data to reduce the number of initial codes and produce meaningful codes by removing, merging, and modifying them (Charmaz, 2008b; Matteucci & Gnoth, 2017). When the initial codes were ready for grouping, they were categorized into seven groups based on the literature. These categories were given focused codes, such as abstract and theory-based perspectives. Following comparisons between data, respondents, and categories, with merging and modifying, the number of focused codes was reduced to five. The study used festival emotion sets (J. Lee & Kyle, 2012, 2013) and PAD models (Russell & Mehrabian, 1977) when grouping emotions. Finally, the study described each category with the support of storytelling, memoing, and literature. The researcher explained and described the necessary types, and some of these categories were redefined, merged, and replaced. An example showcasing our initial and focused codings can be found in Table 5.
Examples of Coding.
Trustworthiness and Quality
The research followed the 10 markers for designing quality in qualitative tourism research as proposed by Frost and Frost (2021), including consideration of philosophical underpinning, detailed justification of methodological approach, evidence of reflexivity, discussing methodology in a logical order, clear explanation of sampling strategy, detailed discussion and justification of data collection method and analysis, projecting the voice of interviewees, use of tick description, creating a narrative, and explaining the credibility of the study. For example, the study ensured credibility by (1) validating the interview transcripts with respondents; (2) being immersed in the community at different events; (3) using the exact words of the respondents in coding; and (4) performing theoretical sampling under the guidance of the participants. The study presents the findings with a thick description to ensure transferability, justifies the choice of grounded theory types, and reviews the literature extensively. Data were collected comprehensively, explained the sampling strategy transparently, and compared with the existing literature, indicating the quality of this study, as proposed by Charmaz and Thornberg (2021), to ensure the quality of the CGT-based research.
Results and Discussion
This study categorized 11 positive emotions into five domains: happiness, pride, arousal, feeling at home, and feeling not lonely (Figure 2). Happiness and arousal represent two or more emotions, whereas pride, feeling at home, and not feeling lonely are the only emotions in each category. The subsequent sub-sections present each emotion and its stimuli.
Diaspora Festival emotional experience.
Happiness
In this study, happiness refers to “the subjective condition of hedonic happiness, or hedonia.” (Waterman, 2011, p. 358), and is an outcome of quality of life, a predictor of subjective well-being, and a positive emotion descriptor. Drawing on Laros and Steenkamp’s (2005) emotion consumption models, this study grouped the following descriptors into the happiness domain: happy, joyful, pleased, optimistic, and hopeful. A total of 36 respondents with varying demographic, migration, and festival participation characteristics used the five happiness descriptors “happy,” “good,” “joy,” “satisfaction,” and “hope” to describe their emotional experiences at diaspora festivals.
Happy
Happy is the most commonly triggered emotion in diverse festival contexts (Doyle et al., 2021; Filo & Coghlan, 2016; Neuhofer et al., 2020). In line with previous studies, this study found happiness as the most expressed positive emotion. Twenty-three respondents used certain words and phrases, such as “happy,” “very happy,” “cannot contain,” “no words to express,” “spiritual happiness,” and “happiness,” to express their happy feelings. Two respondents, Meto and Tamirat, even expressed their happiness with tears. With tears in his eyes, Tamirat said, “When my boy sees me crying, he will tell his mom. It’s surprising because you can’t hide your happiness.” Meanwhile, Meto said he was crying because he was happy: “I can’t control it. I don’t have control of it […] Sometimes I cry when I see the crowd or when I see my flag […] when I see everybody carrying and waving the flag [at ESFNA festival], my tears fall.”
Two factors drove this “happy” emotion: simply being there; and actively engaging in activities. A total of 13 respondents said they felt happy merely being at the festival. For instance, Meto said, “When I attend these events, I feel very happy,” whereas Genet mentioned, “I feel very happy to celebrate the festival here. When I celebrate Meskel, I feel happy.” Timket and Meskel festivals also elicited happy feelings for Robel and Nigus, who claimed, “Simply its presence and being allowed to celebrate [makes] you happy.”
The activities reinforcing this emotion include religious practice, interacting with people from the homeland, volunteering, seeing human crowds, and entertainment activities. First, for religious practice, there are the accounts of Desta and Selam, who felt happy because they sang songs and prayed. Desta commented, “Here, mostly you hear the hymns, the songs you follow, you feel happy.” Selam shared, “Because I thank and glorify God the whole day, I feel happy when I get home.” Second, the human crowd and interaction caused happy feelings in Tsehay, Elsa, Meron, and Lidya. According to Helen, “Nothing more than seeing your people can make you feel happy.” Mesay described spending time with people from the same country as a happy moment: “It makes you happy when you spend time with your fellow countrymen in a foreign country. […] When you meet with your own people, you will feel happy.” Hiwot mentioned, “When you see other people who left their country being an example for others with their good character and good culture […], it has the potential to attract others to appreciate us. That gives us happiness.”
Third, their engagement in volunteering activities and the results of their volunteering brought happiness to Gashaw, Gebre, Meto, Zeru, and Tefera. Tefera and Gebre felt joy by giving directions and serving the community in the events. Gashaw and Meto also felt happy after seeing the fruits of their labor. Gashaw shared, “You feel happy when you see that the festival is being appropriately celebrated, when things go well, when everything is successful, and when you see people are enjoying their time.” Meto claimed he felt delighted after seeing the festival’s success, even though the preparations left him exhausted. Fourth, entertainment was a valuable factor behind the happiness of Ketema and Solomon. For example, Ketema expressed, “The whole week, you throw yourself in parties […] I’m happy when I look forward to it. Life is about happiness. It makes me happy doing all those things.”
In general, happy feelings were initiated by simply being present at the festival and participating in activities, such as religious activities, volunteering, interaction with homeland people, homeland atmosphere, and entertainment. Elicitation of this emotion can predict satisfaction, as in Sweden’s case of Iranian diaspora festival attendees (Abbasian & Lundberg, 2020).
Feeling Good
Feeling good is a happiness emotion descriptor and festival emotional value measurement item used in some studies (X. Fu et al., 2018; C. K. Lee et al., 2007). Feeling good emerged as an emotion descriptor in the interviews with seven respondents. This descriptor has also been reported as one of the positive emotions elicited in charitable sports events (Filo & Coghlan, 2016). This emotion has two drivers: attendance at diaspora festivals and performing religious activities at the event. Yared, Abebe, and Hilina’s accounts are good evidence for the former. Yared said, “When I attend these festivals, I feel good by incorporating the balance” Abebe mentioned, “The feeling is great. I don’t have any words to say. It’s just an important thing, a good feeling.” In addition, four respondents felt good about participating in the religious activities at Timket and Meskel festivals. Performing songs with others gave a special feeling to Meseret, while listening to hymns created good feelings for Beza. Meseret replied, “[…] going to the festival to perform songs with others gives you a unique feeling you can’t get by spending your time in another place.” Given the absence of empirical studies on the driver of this emotion in diaspora or cultural festivals, the findings help to identify which attributes specifically elicit this emotion. Despite measuring the effect of experiential benefits on emotional value in general, X. Fu et al. (2018) did not identify which specific experiences create the emotion of feeling good. This study set out to fill this gap, and the results show that simply being at the festival and following religious programs can evoke good feelings.
Joyful
Eight interviewees reported joyfulness. Joyful experiences are elicited by simply being at the festival, meeting with old friends, listening to ethnic music, participating in religious services, and feeling the homeland atmosphere. The following excerpts highlight the different experiential benefits that lead to joy: (1) “Have you imagined that feeling? When I saw my long-time colleague that day, I was so excited that I was suddenly unable to sing. I cannot express my joy […] Beseme Ab (in the name of God the Father)” (Hewan, who met a long-time friend at the festival); (2) “Listening to the music of different ethnic groups gives me internal joy” (Tamirat, who listened to different ethnic music); and (3) “We are not in our own country, but we want to have our own part in it […] freely celebrating this festival creates a special type of joy” (Lidya, who enjoyed the homeland atmosphere of the festival). Even though some studies measured joy as an emotional value item (J. Lee & Kyle, 2012; C. K. Lee et al., 2007; J. Lee & Kyle, 2013), little is known about which specific experiences can generate such an emotion. This study identified some experiential benefits of this emotion, whose elicitors include being there, meeting long-time friends, listening to ethnic music, participating in religious services, and feeling the homeland atmosphere.
Satisfaction
Some respondents described this feeling as “very satisfying,” “soul satisfaction,” and “spiritual satisfaction.” Fifteen interviewees reported satisfaction with some festival attributes, such as transnational religion, volunteering, and homeland people. Most respondents pointed toward religious experiential benefits as their source of satisfaction. According to Henok, “It’s not only for one day that I get satisfaction but for the whole year when I am baptized.” Meanwhile, Adam and Abebe shared that they felt the most satisfaction from their volunteering experience.
Adam shared, “When you see people are happy doing Elilta, singing, coming into the festival in thousands, not getting hurt, or returning to their respective homes, it makes you feel happy and healthy. You feel a lot of satisfaction there.” Abebe mentioned that “The reward—self-satisfaction—is really great. You feel rewarded when you see this organization grow and bring Ethiopians together in the same place.” In general, transnational religion, volunteering, and homeland people were satisfaction emotion stimulants.
Hopeful
Comparatively few respondents reported hope as a positive emotional experience. Unlike other emotions, the stimuli for this emotion are abstract and indirect. This experience was only reported by four people who felt hopeful about themselves (Tsehay and Gashaw) and the future (Habtamu and Adam). The implicit provokers of such experience included the homeland atmosphere at the religious festival (Tsehay), being able to celebrate the homeland festival freely by doing a chosen activity (Gashaw), and seeing the younger generation taking essential roles in the church (Adam). According to Gashaw, “You feel hopeful and fulfilled when you exercise your own beliefs.” Tsehay said that having a community and strong faith in these festivals made them feel hopeful, personally and for others. Meanwhile, Adam shared, “The incredibly special thing is when I see the next generation participate in these festivals. I feel that Ethiopia remains in good hands when these kids are established in Christian values.” He further explained, “When I see these kids stand to express their religious values, go out at midnight for their prayer, and serve their churches as deacons day and night, it gives me hope. I do see the light, and I do see a brighter future for Ethiopia and EOTC. With this feeling of hope, I don’t feel depressed.”
Even though hope has been rarely adopted or assessed in quantitative studies, Abbasian and Lundberg (2020) and Filo and Coghlan (2016) reported hope as one of the positive emotions elicited in diaspora and sports festivals, respectively. The finding supports those previous inquiries by identifying stimulants such as homeland atmosphere, celebrating homeland festivals, and seeing the younger generation taking a vital role in religious services.
Pride
Pride is the second most elicited positive emotional experience in diaspora festivals. This independent emotion descriptor has no subordinate under positive emotion (Laros & Steenkamp, 2005; J. Lee & Kyle, 2012, 2013). Therefore, this experience is considered an independent dimension. Respondents used words and phrases such as “pride,” “sense of pride,” “full of pride,” “nationality,” “glad to be,” “national pride,” “feeling of we have something to show,” and “very proud to express my emotion.” Two quotes stand out from the interview: “I feel that we have something to show. We have faith and culture that we can share publicly” (Meskerem) and “I am glad to be a follower of the EOTC and thank God” (Dagim).
Pride was mainly evoked by two diaspora festival experiential attributes: transnational religion and homeland atmosphere. Six respondents reported the influence of religious experiential benefits on pride. Given that religious experiences have cultural and spiritual elements, some differences were observed in the aspects of religious experience that stimulated a sense of pride in the respondents. For example, the spiritual aspect of religious experience was essential for Eden to feel proud: “I feel like I have done [well] by God, made him proud, and I feel better and proud of how I have executed my religion and my faith.” Meanwhile, the heritage aspect of religious experience triggered a sense of pride of Robel and Yosef. For instance, Robel said, “I feel proud, emotional, and a sense of national pride. In addition, how our church is rich in culture and tradition—you don’t see it in another community.” Yosef also mentioned, “This is a Christian event. Ethiopia is the only one that celebrates Timket and Demera in such a way. I take pride in keeping that […] It makes me proud that I am Ethiopian.”
The homeland atmosphere (human crowding) also generated a sense of pride for some respondents. Human crowds provided two experiential benefits: seeing Ethiopians together in one place and non-Ethiopians watching Ethiopians. The first aspect triggered a sense of pride for diasporas such as Eden, Hiwot, Meskerem, Yilma, Elsa, and Sami. Eden shared that she felt a sense of pride after being surrounded by “people who were proud of their culture.” Similarly, Hiwot shared, “I am so proud of my culture, my people, for celebrating the festival peacefully and freely.” Yilma also expressed, “I feel pride, honestly. The strongest emotion I feel is pride just seeing your people get together.” Sami said, “They blessed the water, took water pumps and hoses, and spread it on everyone. That also made me feel immensely proud because many people were there.” Sami explained, “When I was there, I felt immensely proud because before going to the festival, I had never seen that many Habesha people gathered in one place at the same time.”
Human crowding also elicited similar emotions in five respondents. For instance, Helen felt she had experienced seeing foreigners visiting the Ethiopian festivals: “When I see white people visiting, I feel that we have a colorful culture that leaves people with their mouths open in amazement […] I am not downing theirs […] Our culture is untouchable and unchangeable.” Meanwhile, Sami shared, “I’ve seen a lot of Americans, a lot of people from different backgrounds, different countries coming and seeing our culture. I see their interest in our culture, and I feel proud.” Abel shared, “It also brings a sense of national pride. In America, they teach you to be proud of your country, but they don’t tend to share with Ethiopia, like those African countries where they say, ‘you guys are poor, you guys are this and that…’ But when you come together, they start seeing the country’s true wealth, whether in terms of knowledge or history […] They start discovering things, like Queen Andromeda being Ethiopian. So, when I saw these people joining our festival, I felt proud of being from Ethiopia.”
Sami and Yilma also saw Ethiopians celebrating with other nationalities in ethnic migrant festivals, which left them feeling proud. For example, Yilma said, “You also see people of other nationalities taking an interest or showing curiosity about our culture. They come up to you and ask, ‘Oh, what is this? Oh, what is going on here?”
To conclude, pride is the second emotion category constructed in this study. Although less elicited, Abbasian and Lundberg (2020) identified pride as one of the emotional experiences produced during the Persian Fire Festival. Interestingly, in this study, young respondents experienced this emotion more than the first-generation diaspora. The generators of this emotion include showcasing homeland culture and religion on the streets, transnational religion, and homeland atmosphere.
Arousal
Arousal is among the three-factor emotion measurement schemes that refer to the degree of excitement and stimulation. In some festival studies, emotion descriptors such as excitement, surprise, and elatedness have measured arousal. However, in the original PAD model, arousal has multiple emotion descriptors, including excitement and wonder (Russell & Mehrabian, 1977). Therefore, excitement and surprise were adopted in this work as arousal emotion descriptors.
Excitement
Excitement is one of the most experienced emotions in diaspora festivals. A total of 14 respondents divided their levels of excitement into excited (Selam and Meskerem), thrilled (Hailu), and very (so) excited/thrilled (Hewan, Yared, Habtamu, and Saba). This experience had multiple triggers, including ethnic music, seeing homeland people, being able to attend Ethiopian festivals and the homeland atmosphere. Being able to participate in Ethiopian festivals and interacting with homeland people were the sources of excitement for Yared and Habtamu/Helen, respectively. Habtamu felt excited after seeing many Habeshas assembled in one place. Helen felt excited because her attendance allowed her to share her festival experiences in the future. Seeing high-profile singers and musicians generated this emotion in some respondents. For example, Saba felt excited after seeing a famous Ethiopian singer, Aregahagn Worash, at the Ethiopian Day festival in Maryland. Similar to Yared, Hailu was excited by his attendance at Meskel: “It’s always been a positive experience because you get back home after a long day of being physically thrilled.”
Surprise
Surprise is a positive emotion descriptor with three sub-descriptors: surprise, amazement, and astonishment (J. Lee & Kyle, 2012; Richins, 1997). Eight respondents expressed this emotion using words such as “amazing,” “appreciating,” “wow,” “no words to express,” and “wondering.” Its stimulants include seeing foreigners watching the diaspora festival, the meaning of the songs and religious activities, the festival, the crowd, and the ability of Ethiopians to stage homeland festivals and attend them continuously. These triggers can be detected in the interview excerpts of some respondents. For instance, two respondents felt surprised by the transnational religious experiential benefits. After understanding the meaning of the songs, Meron and Hewan started wondering, with Hewan saying, “Aha, I got it. That is why I sing this song.” Robel and Martha also felt surprised by the homeland’s atmospheric experience at the festival. Robel observed some people saying “wow” upon seeing foreigners celebrating with them: “When you see foreigners coming to visit the festival, you can only say wow.” Similarly, the support of the DC government and the attendance of thousands of Ethiopian Americans amazed Martha.
Respondents noted that people are surprised by ethnic migrant festivals, as reported by Saba and Sami. On the one hand, Saba attended the Ethiopian Day festival in September 2021 and was impressed by the event’s performance: “I don’t know how to express it. That day was exceptional.” On the other hand, Sami felt surprised at all four festivals. However, the human crowd (homeland atmosphere) triggered surprise in attendees. This emotion was triggered in different ways, both explicitly (many people coming together to celebrate the festival) and implicitly (the organizers being able to bring such a large number of people together and secure expensive venues). The excerpt, “Oh wow, all these people are here [Timket] to celebrate the baptism of Jesus Christ,” describes explicitly triggered surprise. In contrast, the same respondent said, “I always thought that it was amazing how they had all the resources and the money and the time to bring all these people together at once to have this huge cultural celebration [ESFNA and Ethiopian Day].” This implicitly triggered surprise. Concerning his experiences on Ethiopian Day, Sami shared, “I always thought it was amazing how they [organizers] were able to secure this area to celebrate the Ethiopian and Habesha cultures… I thought, oh wow, so the Habesha people are very, very respected.”
Arousal is the third emotional experience dimension of diaspora festivals and includes two emotions: excitement and surprise. Contrary to Liburd and Derkzen (2009), this study found that visitors and performers were aroused during their participation in festivals. In quantitative research, excitement is treated as a measurement item for arousal across different contexts (Carneiro et al., 2019; Y. K. Lee et al., 2008; Song et al., 2019). Both excitement and surprise have also been identified as positive emotions experienced by the attendees at different festivals (Neuhofer et al., 2020). However, respondents aged between 56 and 65 felt neither excitement nor surprise. Excitement had multiple triggers, including ethnic music, homeland people, festival attendance, and homeland atmosphere. Surprise triggers included seeing foreigners watching the festival, understanding the meaning of religious songs and activities, the crowd, the festival, and the ability to stage such an event.
Feeling at Home
Feeling at home was reported by 12 respondents who were born in Ethiopia and attended one or more transnational festivals. Given their festival experiences back home, these respondents were able to identify elements in celebrations in their host and home countries that made them feel at home. However, Meron, Gashaw, Hewan, and Nigus described their experiences differently. For instance, Meron shared, “Back home, we celebrated Demera in Meskel Square, and we do the same thing over here.” Similarly, Hewan said, “I just felt like I was in Ethiopia.” Finally, Nigus described this emotion in detail as follows: “All the people came, the children were wearing traditional clothes, and the environ (vibe) was reminiscent of our country’s vibe […] Here, for me, it’s highly subdued. You sense that the festival is being held at home […] It was like we all gathered at Meskel Square in Addis Ababa.”
In addition to the homeland atmospheric attribute of the festival, the presence and accessibility of international festivals made Adam, Tefera, Robel, and Selam feel at home. Tefera highlighted how attending the festival, even with a few people, promoted a feeling of being at home. Similarly, Adam reported, “Celebrating these festivals provides me with the opportunity not to feel like I am in a foreign land.”
Some diasporas also felt at home at these festivals because of their interactions with people from their homeland. Hilina said, “You feel you are back home by connecting with your culture, tradition, and religion.” Meanwhile, Yilma explained, “The camaraderie of everybody made us feel that we are back home. These events help you remember what it feels like to be at home with your own people.”
Although reported in previous studies (Hassanli et al., 2020, 2021), this emotion has never been discussed as an emotional experience of festival attendees. This emotion, particularly apparent among first-generation diasporas, is generated by the homeland atmosphere. However, no extant emotion measurement scheme has categorized feeling at home as an emotion descriptor. Some scholars have also reported that diaspora festivals generate a sense of place and enhance attendees’ connection and commitment to their homeland (McClinchey, 2021; Ong et al., 2017; Tondo, 2010). This empirical work reports similar observations and uniquely identifies feeling at home as an emotional experience of diaspora festivals.
Feeling Not Lonely
Loneliness is a negative emotion descriptor in a number of emotional experience measurement schemes (Russell & Mehrabian, 1977). However, even though exploratory reports reveal the contribution of events in reducing loneliness, little is known about its measurement or the dimensionality of negative emotions in a festival context. Moreover, while most emotion descriptors have antonyms, loneliness has none. Therefore, this study used the term “feeling not lonely” as an emotional experience of diaspora festivals. The feeling of not being lonely was experienced by nine respondents aged between 36 and 45 years, holding post-graduate degrees, who had moved to the US recently with different migration backgrounds (mostly first-generation diasporas who attended Timket and Meskel recently). As evidenced in the interview excerpts, this emotion was triggered by interactions with homeland people and seeing a crowd of Ethiopians.
Robel moved to the US 8 years ago and experienced loneliness. However, after attending Ethiopian festivals, he no longer felt lonely: “You become concerned, feel loneliness, stress, and many other things because you are far away from your family and country. Fortunately, the presence of many Ethiopians here allowed us to receive the same service as we did back home.” Similarly, Abel curbed his loneliness by interacting with people from his homeland: “An important part of life is people sharing their feelings with you, so you start feeling like ‘I am not alone in this.’ Socially, that is very important to my day-to-day life.” Martha explained in detail how interacting with the homeland people helped her feel not lonely: “When you gather around with the congregation, you feel that you are not alone even when facing challenges, whether financial problems, prejudice, being disrespected, or being told by someone that you don’t belong here. It feels different when you are sitting with your own people. You tell yourself, ‘Oh, I’m not alone, there are so many of us, and we can do so much. If I need anything, I know where to go.’ Knowing where the church service is, and the people, decreases my anxiety and loneliness.”
The feeling of not being lonely was precious for Nigus, who had lived long in places where he could not attend any festivals. To temporarily escape his loneliness, he traveled to neighboring states/cities, where some Ethiopians were residing, every year during the Ethiopian holidays. However, after moving to Virginia, Nigus started to feel that he was not alone anymore. His Virginia residence allowed him to attend Ethiopian festivals in the DMV area. When asked why he no longer felt lonely, he answered, “It’s because I had once lived in a place where these festivals did not exist. That made me feel lonely as if I had lost something.”
Tefera recommended that active participation and immersion in the festival (escapist experience) can also help people escape their loneliness: “Even if it is celebrated with only a few attendees, each activity you do in the festival has value, which is not to feel lonely.”
Feeling not lonely is a unique emotional value of diaspora festivals. All respondents who valued this emotion originated from their homeland and had been experiencing it in the US. This emotion was triggered by the homeland atmosphere and people. Given that immigrants are vulnerable to discrimination, exclusion, and racism, they have a high probability of experiencing loneliness (Hassanli et al., 2020), which explains why this emotional value is precious to them. As festivals are ideal places for people to build their social networks and receive support, immigrants can attend such events to overcome their feelings of loneliness.
Conclusions
This study explored diaspora festival attendees’ emotional experiences and their evokers targeting Ethiopian diasporas living in the USA. Subsequently, the study identified 11 emotions and grouped them into five categories: happiness, pride, arousal, feeling at home, and feeling not lonely. In addition, as shown in Figure 3, the study also identified their individual evokers, including five festival attributes and the opportunity to attend the event. The data indicated that homeland people, homeland atmosphere, and religious activities triggered more than three emotions. Interestingly, all attributes elicited at least one basic emotion in the happiness category, suggesting that diaspora festivals triggered happiness. The finding indicates that diaspora festivals improve immigrants’ quality of life by allowing them to experience positive emotions. Even though being at the event without participating in various activities brings happiness and arousal, participation in activities such as religious services, ethnic music, volunteering, interaction with homeland people, and homeland atmosphere help individuals gain different emotional experiences. The elicitation of these five emotional experiences suggests that diaspora festivals are important avenues to improve well-being.
Diaspora festival emotion dimensions and their evokers.
Theoretical Implications
The theoretical implications of this study are six-fold. First, the study developed a five-dimensional diaspora festival emotional experience framework that can guide future studies and challenge existing festival emotion measurement models. It identified emotions that are rarely elicited or measured (e.g., pride, excitement, and hope) and that are unique to diasporas (e.g., feeling at home and not feeling lonely). This indicates that other emotion models cannot adequately measure/capture the emotions elicited in such festivals. These models include the festival consumption emotion set (Laros & Steenkamp, 2005), festival emotion measurement scale (J. Lee & Kyle, 2012, 2013), the destination emotion scale (Hosany & Gilbert, 2010), and PAD (Russell & Mehrabian, 1977). This study suggests that future research needs to adopt the five-dimensional diaspora festival dynamic values for measuring emotional experiences and values in diaspora festival settings. In addition, research guided by other theoretical frameworks needs to encompass pride, feeling at home, and feeling not lonely in emotional experience and values assessment items.
Second, as shown in Figure 3, the study identified the specific stimulants of each emotion elicited in diaspora festivals. Unlike previous studies that examined the effect of specific attributes on emotion (J. S. Lee et al., 2011), this study identified which particular features or experiential benefits reinforce what specific emotion and empirically explained the relationship. The framework will help future studies to empirically test emotion-based approaches in different settings and examine each attribute or experience in the specific domain of emotion. Third, this study found that the reason for migration, generation cohort, demographic profile, and festival participation behavior influenced diaspora festival attendees’ emotional experience, suggesting future research should consider these variables in the study of diaspora festivals and tourism. Fourth, the use of constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2008a, 2008b) allowed the researchers to identify specific emotions and categorize them to construct a diaspora festival emotional experience framework, challenging existing festival emotion measurement models. Therefore, we believe this study will increase our knowledge of the application of CGT in festival and tourism emotion research. Fifth, since the identified emotions are positive, which are critical components of positive psychology (Seligman, 2018; Vada et al., 2020) and measures of subjective well-being (Diener, 1984; Yu et al., 2022a), the constructed framework can be seen as the hedonic well-being outcome of diaspora festival experience. Hence, future studies could adopt and extend the framework in well-being research in the context of diaspora festivals and tourism. Last, this study enriched our understanding of emotion by introducing the perspective of under-researched and minority groups’ perspectives. Previous studies mainly targeted tourists and non-migrant festivals (J. Lee & Kyle, 2012, 2013); a perspective on migrants and their festivals was missing. However, the current study addressed this gap by investigating the viewpoint of Ethiopian diaspora communities about their festivals.
Practical Implications
Practically, this study is important to event organizers, migrant-sending and migrant-receiving countries, and diaspora festival attendees. For event organizers and event tourism managers, the study suggests diaspora festival organizers should consider age groups and generations in their marketing strategies. They could promote their events to younger generations as a source of pride and happiness and to first-generation migrants as a way of overcoming negative emotions. In addition, it is vital to maintain the accessibility, quality, and suitability of essential attributes to enable festival attendees to experience these positive emotions to improve their subjective well-being. Also, this study helps to create understanding among all stakeholders that diaspora festivals offer the opportunity for migrants to share more positive emotions. Our findings indicated that diasporic individuals appreciated the support of the local government during their celebrations, suggesting local government support through the provision of safety and security services can provoke a positive attitude in migrants toward the host government and people. Furthermore, individuals who have recently arrived in a host country should consider attending diaspora festivals to feel at home and not lonely. However, for migrants to develop these feelings, the festivals should allow individuals to experience the homeland atmosphere and meet homeland people. Doing so also helps young generations to feel pride in their heritage.
Limitations and Future Research
This study has some limitations that future research needs to consider. First, given that the data were collected from a single migrant group and their festivals, the study faces a generalizability issue. This study reflects the perspectives of Ethiopian Americans and sub-Saharan African contemporary migrants regarding their festivals. However, it may not reflect contemporary migrants from other regions because of country background and other variables. Therefore, research on this topic in various contexts is worthwhile. Comparative studies on diasporas’ emotional experiences across developed and developing countries may also add relevant empirical information to the tourism and emotion literature. Second, because the study aimed to explore the evokers and elicited emotions at diaspora festivals, the study did not statistically test the relationship with large samples. To address this issue, future research needs to adopt a quantitative approach to measure and verify that emotional experiences are based on the festival and diaspora tourism settings, statistically test the relationship with a large sample, and replicate the current research in different geographical and socio-demographic settings. Thirdly, since this study’s data collection method relied on visitors’ self-report of emotions, it has a limitation in its ability to measure real-time emotions. Meanwhile, previous research has successfully utilized real-time physio-psychological measures to assess emotions in various contexts, such as measuring travelers’ destination experiences (Kim & Fesenmaier, 2015; Shoval et al., 2018) and their responses to tourism advertisements (Bastiaansen et al., 2022; S. Li et al., 2018). Therefore, future research needs to consider incorporating real-time physio-psychological measures to examine festival attendees’ emotional dynamics during different activities within the event.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Financial support was provided by The Hong Kong Government Research Grants Council (RGC) through its Hong Kong Ph.D. Fellowship Scheme and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University to conduct this study.
