By exploring the case study of a transnational Zapotec village between Mexico and the United States from a media anthropology perspective, this contribution highlights the value of applying a multi-layered methodology when studying affective media practices as an object of investigation. Heterogeneous actors in Yalálag and Los Angeles rely on affective media practices to generate a ‘co-presence’ and create a ‘home’ that connects them to multiple places whereby their practices become sites of relational affective dynamics. Based on four methodological layers, this approach discerns step-by-step how these actors ‘do affects’, resignify emotions and transculturalize emotion repertoires when mediatizing Zapotec dances.