This essay argues that Sara Ahmed’s methodology for reading the emotionality of texts, through its focus on the relationships between emotions, language and bodies, can be applied to the emotional responses of Australians to refugees and asylum seekers. This essay specifically focuses on the emotions of disgust and pain in the participants of Go Back To Where You Came From, a three-part Australian documentary/realia TV series, because these two emotions’ preoccupation with surface and proximity provide a useful metaphor for what can be observed in the participants’ emotionality. Sensuous proximity in the form of sight, taste, smell, touch and hearing underlies the disgust experienced by the Go Back participants, while shared surfaces enable the participants to feel the pain of others. The essay concludes that Ahmed’s methodology is indeed an effective tool for analysing the emotions of people “affected” by the transnational movements of others.