{"id":629,"date":"2011-11-24T14:22:39","date_gmt":"2011-11-24T13:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/?p=629"},"modified":"2011-11-24T14:22:39","modified_gmt":"2011-11-24T13:22:39","slug":"highly-mobile-expatriates-dont-attach-any-sense-of-home-to-the-different-places-they-travel-to-some-evidence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/2011\/11\/24\/highly-mobile-expatriates-dont-attach-any-sense-of-home-to-the-different-places-they-travel-to-some-evidence\/","title":{"rendered":"Highly mobile expatriates don’t attach any sense of home to the different places they travel to? Some evidence."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In my previous Fact or Fiction<\/em> entry<\/a>\u00a0 I asked whether \u2018Highly mobile expatriates attach any sense of home to the different places they travel to’.<\/p>\n

Here is some evidence:<\/p>\n

The statement that \u2018highly mobile expatriates don’t attach any sense of home to the different places they travel to\u2019 is neither fact nor fiction.<\/p>\n

Whether expatriates do not feel \u2018at home\u2019 in the host country and refer to their country of origin as their home can be true for some expats and false for others, as it depends on many factors. However, the notion that expatriates overall lose a feeling of home and become \u2018placeless\u2019 needs to be contested. Although increased globalism and cosmopolitanism emphasize the change towards belonging \u2018everywhere\u2019, which indicates a higher degree of flexibility and fluidity of what expatriated people may call \u2018home\u2019, the need for identifying \u2018home\u2019 is still apparent.<\/p>\n

A recent paper by Melissa Butcher, examining issues of belonging and identity in transnational mobility, states that highly mobile expatriates still need to fix home by attaching a particular meaning to a particular place.<\/p>\n

In 2010, Dr Butcher carried out an in-depth qualitative study of experiences of five relocated professionals and concluded that the question of place and identity is far more complex than simply differentiating between \u2018attached\u2019 or \u2018detached\u2019, and always includes a \u2018but\u2019: a person-specific context, a personal affective dimension. The paper argues that \u2018it must feel like home\u2019 is critical for fixing a place as home, with \u2018familiarity\u2019 and \u2018comfort\u2019 being the two recurring words used by the expatriates to describe this feeling. While there is coherence in how it should feel, the material and social practices leading to the feeling can be very different:<\/p>\n

\u2026Home is where my parents are<\/em>\u2026I think it\u2019s expressing yourself, doing something you really like to do<\/em>\u2026The place is familiar, it\u2019s comfortable, I\u2019ve got some friends here<\/em>\u2026To me, see, home is where my house is<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n

(Comments by study participants, Butcher, 2010: 27-32)<\/p>\n

While the tangible and intangible qualities of home can be defined, the answer to a question \u2018where<\/em> is home\u2019 can be quite ambiguous. For the interviewed expatriates country of origin remained their \u2018home\u2019 from a cultural perspective, because of the relationship ties, and as a place where one was born and has spent a lot of time, which is now embedded in memories and imagination.<\/p>\n

\u2026Only because I was born there, so it can never not be home. Yeah, it is, because it defines me<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n

(Comments by a study participant, Butcher, 2010: 29)<\/p>\n

However, after relocating expatriates found it challenging to keep to the former reference points of home, while not yet feeling home in the new place. As the study implies, at times there could be a concomitant feeling of not quite being at home in either place, feeling like \u2018a fish out of the water\u2019. To avoid feeling out of place, and re-establish points of familiarity and comfort, a new place will be assessed in terms of how it compares with one\u2019s original home, which leads to identifying a place for \u2018fitting in\u2019.<\/p>\n

As the study results show, most of the expatriates were able to re-place bits of their home in the host country, and feel a sense of fitting-in there. In fact, with time spent abroad the \u2018fitting in\u2019 in the host country became even stronger than in the home country, as feelings of familiarity and comfort increased over time. In the end, the number of home qualities associated with either host or home country may outweigh the other and thus give a sense of better fitting in to one of them. At the same time, the complex belonging to \u2018bits\u2019 of multiple homes was also evident.<\/p>\n

Dr Butcher (2010:34) concludes that \u2018in either case there was still an expressed need in this study to embed home as a space of comfort and cultural \ufb01t within a speci\ufb01c place that offered security and familiarity\u2019. These attempts to embed home within a place can be explained by several factors, such as alleviating perceptions of differences; maintaining a link between home and expressions of identity; and the need to manage one\u2019s mental and physical resources of relocation.<\/p>\n

Finally, the narratives of these relocated professionals lead Butcher (2010: 34) to acknowledge that \u2018re-placing home was a dif\ufb01cult process involving feelings of being \u2018lost\u2019, and the surrender of \u2018bits\u2019 of former homes and associated practices\u2019.<\/p>\n

Further reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Butcher, M. (2010). From \u201cFish Out of Water\u201d to \u201cFitting In\u201d: The Challenge of Finding Home in a Mobile World. In Special Issue: Embodied Transnationalism: Bodies in Transnational Spaces, Population, Space and Place<\/em>, Vol. 16, No 1., pp 23-36.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whether expatriates do not feel \u2018at home\u2019 in the host country and refer to their country of origin as their home can be true for some expats and false for others, as it depends on many factors. However, the notion that expatriates overall lose a feeling of home and become \u2018placeless\u2019 needs to be contested.
\nTake a look at some evidence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":345,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17547],"tags":[18341,18403,18404,18406],"class_list":["post-629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-truth-or-urban-legend","tag-expatriate","tag-feeling-like-home","tag-fitting-in","tag-replacing-home"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/345"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":641,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629\/revisions\/641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}