Return Visits as a Marker of Differentiation in the Social Field

Abstract

This article sets out to examine how differences within a migrant community are expressed through return visits, and particularly through visitors' narratives about their country of origin. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with Burundians living in Norway and the UK, I argue that the Burundian social field is characterized by two opposing positions regarding the possibility of return, and that the political field in the country of settlement plays an influential role in how those two positions are defined. Two narratives called 'instability and alienation' and 'progress and opportunities' from return visits are used to express support for one or the other of these two positions. I also argue that Bourdieu's conceptualization of social practice is highly relevant for migration research because it allows for analysing differences within a migration community, and that the advantages of combining habitus, capital and field should be further explored, both theoretically and comparatively.

Motherhood Motivations: African Refugee Women Resettled in Australia and Return Visits to a Country of First Asylum

“…Indeed, the case study I present here expands on emerging scholarship which similarly recognizes that return visits express particular aspects of forced migration experience (Wise, ; Muller, ; Stefansson, ; Janzen, ; Barnes, ). Due to parallels between this study and others which similarly emphasize the phenomenon of return visits as examples of enduring attachment to pre‐migration settings (Sagmo, :658; Oeppen, ; Muggeridge and Doná, ; Al‐Ali, Black, and Koser, :589), I am encouraged that the findings of this research hold wider significance, and also form an expanded entry point for future research to consider the gendered dynamics of such “returns” which currently remain underexplored in this field of scholarship. In addition, this article expands the scope of “return” beyond the conventional assumption of return to country of origin, to consider that in forced migration contexts, particularly, “return” may encompass travelling to a country of first asylum.…”

“…Significantly, the men I spoke with during fieldwork described how their desire to “return” was influenced by motivations to visit family, but also to meet with church leaders, business operators, and persons with political significance (c.f. Sagmo ), with these more entrepreneurial interests often requiring that they visit both their country of origin and the country in which they had previously lived in first asylum. Women, in contrast, were more likely to focus on providing care to family members, often requiring that they visit a country of first asylum in which family members remained in protracted displacement.…”

“…However, as I observed in my research, despite these long distance means of support, resettled refugees often still choose to physically travel back to a country of first asylum. The phenomenon of refugee “return” has also been recognized in forced migration scholarship as part of these enduring attachments to pre‐migration settings, but “return” has primarily been explored in relation to country of origin (Sagmo, ; Oeppen, ; Muggeridge and Doná, ; Al‐Ali, Black, and Koser, :589). Yet it was to visit a country in which they had previously lived in first asylum, and in which many of their family members still remained, that I observed refugee women plan and execute their “return.”…”

Transnational Islamic charity as everyday rituals

“…As Ali-Ali's (2002) analysis of gender relations, transnational ties and rituals among Bosnian refugees indicates, rituals may be religious -or seem to be -but they always intersect with culture and with ongoing negotiations of identity at an individual and collective level. Routinized transnational practices take on ritual meaning, as noted in other studies on migrant transnationalism, with reference to the weekly phone call, the shared celebration of holidays across transnational space, and the return visit itself (Mason 2004;Sagmo 2014). In our study, we acknowledge the significance of the transnational social field as a site for the performance of everyday rituals.…”

Return visits and belonging to countries of origin among young people from refugee backgrounds

“…Return visits describe trips by members of diaspora communities with social and cultural ties to a destination, either by birth, descent, or first-hand (non-tourist) experience (Duval 2004;Sagmo 2014). While they function to link social fields and develop transnational identities, their immediate purpose is generally for tourism, leisure, seeing family or learning about homeland culture (Kibria 2002;Vathi and King 2011).…”