Emotion and imagination in English-medium instruction programs: Illuminating its dark side through Nepali students’ narratives

•English-medium instruction (EMI) program is a space of unequal emotions.•The socio-emotional selection of EMI programs is embedded in the neoliberal imagination.•Neoliberal desire for EMI creates a discourse of mixed emotions and inequalities.•Examining emotions highlights the scope of improvement for students’ wellbeing. This article reports on students’ affective dimension in English-medium instruction (EMI) university programs in Nepal. To unpack the affective dimension of EMI students, I conducted interviews and focus group discussions with students from different disciplines (e.g., business, nursing, pharmacy, and education). The data analysis revealed that the social and cognitive process of selecting an EMI program is embedded in “neoliberal imagination,” in which they perceive EMI as a way to upward socioeconomic and symbolic mobility. Such neoliberal desire has implicitly appropriated EMI as a neoliberal endowment and created a discourse of unequal emotions. While EMI has engendered positive emotions (e.g., hope and pride) for some students, other students from non-EMI schooling backgrounds experience negative emotions (e.g., shame and anxiety). The paper, therefore, argues that the neoliberal desire for EMI can create a discourse of mixed emotions, also leading to emotional challenges and discrimination against some students.