Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- 1 Introduction: Return Migration/the Returning Migrant: To What, Where and Why?
- 2 Neither Necessity nor Nostalgia: Japanese-Brazilian Transmigrants and the Multigenerational Meanings of Return
- 3 The Fluidity of Return: Indian Student Migrants’ Transnational Ambitions and the Meaning of Australian Permanent Residency
- 4 Resident ‘Non-resident’ Indians: Gender, Labour and the Return to India
- 5 ‘It's Still Home Home’: Notions of the Homeland for Filipina Dependent Students in Ireland
- 6 Looking Back while Moving Forward: Japanese Elites and the Prominence of ‘Home’ in Discourses of Settlement and Cultural Assimilation in the United States, 1890-1924
- 7 Return of the Lost Generation?: Search for Belonging, Identity and Home among Second- Generation Viet Kieu
- 8 ‘A Xu/Sou for the Students’: A Discourse Analysis of Vietnamese Student Migration to France in the Late Colonial Period
- 9 ‘The Bengali Can Return to His Desh but the Burmi Can't Because He Has No Desh’: Dilemmas of Desire and Belonging amongst the Burmese- Rohingya and Bangladeshi Migrants in Pakistan
- Contributors
- Bibliography
- Index
- Global Asia
1 - Introduction: Return Migration/the Returning Migrant: To What, Where and Why?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- 1 Introduction: Return Migration/the Returning Migrant: To What, Where and Why?
- 2 Neither Necessity nor Nostalgia: Japanese-Brazilian Transmigrants and the Multigenerational Meanings of Return
- 3 The Fluidity of Return: Indian Student Migrants’ Transnational Ambitions and the Meaning of Australian Permanent Residency
- 4 Resident ‘Non-resident’ Indians: Gender, Labour and the Return to India
- 5 ‘It's Still Home Home’: Notions of the Homeland for Filipina Dependent Students in Ireland
- 6 Looking Back while Moving Forward: Japanese Elites and the Prominence of ‘Home’ in Discourses of Settlement and Cultural Assimilation in the United States, 1890-1924
- 7 Return of the Lost Generation?: Search for Belonging, Identity and Home among Second- Generation Viet Kieu
- 8 ‘A Xu/Sou for the Students’: A Discourse Analysis of Vietnamese Student Migration to France in the Late Colonial Period
- 9 ‘The Bengali Can Return to His Desh but the Burmi Can't Because He Has No Desh’: Dilemmas of Desire and Belonging amongst the Burmese- Rohingya and Bangladeshi Migrants in Pakistan
- Contributors
- Bibliography
- Index
- Global Asia
Summary
Introduction
Most migrants will be intimately familiar with the question of return. The question of returning ‘home,’ to the ‘homeland,’ the ‘country of origin,’ ‘the place left behind’ is something that is intrinsically linked to the migration decision itself and how the migration trajectory ultimately is experienced. The way individuals deal with the question of ‘return’ often seems to reflect, or be in dialogue with, the reasons for leaving in the first place, ranging from the economically and/or politically motivated to more personal ones that often seem infused with socio-cultural expectations. Whether migration is permanent or temporary or something in-between – temporary at first, perhaps permanent in the long run – where one comes from, what one leaves behind, is likely to continue to influence the way the migration process is experienced even well into a ‘settled’ life elsewhere. While the question of return thus shapes and gives meaning and direction to a migration trajectory it also demands an answer not just at ‘some point’ but also at regular intervals. More than ever before ‘return’ has become a regularly ‘returning’ feature of having migrated abroad. In some cases the frequency of return has become such a regular feature of a migrant's life that we have come to speak of a transnational lifestyle; one characterized by being ‘here’ nor ‘there,’ or maybe exactly the opposite: ‘being in both,’ maintaining social and/or business relations in one's country of origin as well as settlement, and thus firmly rooted in multiple locations.
What does ‘return’ mean to migrants? This is the central question this volume puts forward. What does ‘return’ mean for different groups of (Asian) migrants – temporary and permanent; voluntary and forced; international and internal; skilled and unskilled; and those that fall into in-between categories? How do they strategize towards, discuss, negotiate and perhaps also avoid the question? The case studies presented in this volume take a migrant-centred approach in that they examine the question from the perspective of migrants themselves. In doing so these case studies differ considerably from the majority of studies examining ‘return migration’ which explore the question of return mostly as a traceable and/ or predictable flow or process that requires and thus also ‘predictably’ provides clear-cut answers in terms of composition (Who returns?), factors (Why return?), duration (When did they return?), and impact (What are the consequences of return?).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Transnational Migration and AsiaThe Question of Return, pp. 9 - 24Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2015
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