The emotional labour of becoming international: affective governance and intercultural identity in pre-mobility admissions

Purpose This study aims to examine how Vietnamese graduates preparing for master’s study abroad experience admissions as emotional labour and intercultural identity work. It reframes pre-mobility as an intercultural pedagogy in which applicants calibrate voice, manage affect and render themselves globally legible. Design/methodology/approach Using a narrative–affective design, this study draws on 14 semi-structured interviews and accompanying artefacts (SOP drafts, LOR requests, scholarship rubrics and online posts). Reflexive thematic and narrative analyses traced affective mechanisms across time, supported by descriptive counts of peer edits and boundary practices. Ethical translation and anonymisation followed Glissant’s “right to opacity”. Findings Admissions artefacts operated as affective infrastructures that attached hope, shame and vigilance to thresholds. Applicants performed the emotional labour of becoming international through genre curation, tone calibration and strategic opacity while sustaining care through peer mentoring and self-regulation. Household negotiations translated aspiration into calculable virtue through ROI talk, while Zalo-based communities circulated comparison and care in equal measure. Together, these practices constituted admissions as affective governance that both disciplines and enables intercultural becoming. Originality/value This study positions pre-mobility as a critical intercultural site of identity formation, extending affect theory and emotional labour scholarship to admissions. It shows how audit cultures and moral economies reproduce Global South/Global North asymmetries through emotional as well as academic filters.