Original scientific paper

YOU’RE AT HOME – YOU’RE NOT HOME. MIGRANT EXPERIENCE OF RETURNING “HOME”

Ana-Marija Vukušić ; Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, Zagreb, Croatia

Abstract

While focusing on the specific experience of migration and return, the author deals in her work with narrative and practical ways of establishing, affirming and even denying belonging to a particular physical space. As a supporting analytical construct she chooses the term “home” which, although adjacent in meaning, surpasses the more commonplace concepts implied by the term identity. Thinking about home in light of contemporary approaches to return migrations which emphasize plurality, complexity and ambivalence rather than uniformity of returnees’ experiences, the author relies on the ethnography of the particular as almost the only acceptable way of grasping the “reality” of anthropological subjects (determined by the meanings that they themselves attach to their experiences of migration, return and home). In the context of such an approach, home emerges as a multilayered space of commonality defined by place, time, rights, obligations as well as other different critera.

Keywords

home; return; migrations; the ethnography of the particular

Hrčak ID:

69363

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/69363

Publication date:

17.6.2011.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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