Abstract
Transnational migrants negotiate the multiplicity of ‘here’ and ‘there’ and contested notions of ‘home’ between home and host countries. As transnational migrant women in Australia, we explore these notions and our intimacies with ‘home’ as a complicated, ambivalent set of imaginings, biographies and emotions in relation to place, people and socio-cultural expectations. Using evocative autoethnographic accounts through ‘intimate landscapes of self-confessions’ based on personal experiences our narratives articulate ‘intimacies’ as something other than a direct relationship between self and other. Intimacies become a space within which self and home can be sought and experienced through emotional reflexivity (Holmes, 2010) generated by memories, practices of relationality and place-making through sociocultural encrustations. Skrbiš’s (2008) emphasis on migrant narratives rooted in emotions, Bradatan, Popan and Melton's (2010) concept of fluid social identities and Ahmed's (2000) challenge to the notion of home as a ‘fixity’ underpin our discussion on identities and positionalities. Reflecting on a ‘notional home,’ we touch upon our ‘practise of emotions and intimacies’ (MacLaren 2014, Everts and Wagner, 2012) in relation to home and host cultures, with reference to gender, race and class in renegotiating our transnational identities.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 63-70 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Emotion, Space and Society |
| Volume | 31 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - May 2019 |
Keywords
- Emotional reflexivity
- Home
- Intimacies
- Transnational migration
Cite this
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(Re)negotiating transnational identities : notions of ‘home’ and ‘distanced intimacies’. / Belford, Nish; Lahiri-Roy, Reshmi.
In: Emotion, Space and Society, Vol. 31, 05.2019, p. 63-70.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review
TY - JOUR
T1 - (Re)negotiating transnational identities
T2 - notions of ‘home’ and ‘distanced intimacies’
AU - Belford, Nish
AU - Lahiri-Roy, Reshmi
PY - 2019/5
Y1 - 2019/5
N2 - Transnational migrants negotiate the multiplicity of ‘here’ and ‘there’ and contested notions of ‘home’ between home and host countries. As transnational migrant women in Australia, we explore these notions and our intimacies with ‘home’ as a complicated, ambivalent set of imaginings, biographies and emotions in relation to place, people and socio-cultural expectations. Using evocative autoethnographic accounts through ‘intimate landscapes of self-confessions’ based on personal experiences our narratives articulate ‘intimacies’ as something other than a direct relationship between self and other. Intimacies become a space within which self and home can be sought and experienced through emotional reflexivity (Holmes, 2010) generated by memories, practices of relationality and place-making through sociocultural encrustations. Skrbiš’s (2008) emphasis on migrant narratives rooted in emotions, Bradatan, Popan and Melton's (2010) concept of fluid social identities and Ahmed's (2000) challenge to the notion of home as a ‘fixity’ underpin our discussion on identities and positionalities. Reflecting on a ‘notional home,’ we touch upon our ‘practise of emotions and intimacies’ (MacLaren 2014, Everts and Wagner, 2012) in relation to home and host cultures, with reference to gender, race and class in renegotiating our transnational identities.
AB - Transnational migrants negotiate the multiplicity of ‘here’ and ‘there’ and contested notions of ‘home’ between home and host countries. As transnational migrant women in Australia, we explore these notions and our intimacies with ‘home’ as a complicated, ambivalent set of imaginings, biographies and emotions in relation to place, people and socio-cultural expectations. Using evocative autoethnographic accounts through ‘intimate landscapes of self-confessions’ based on personal experiences our narratives articulate ‘intimacies’ as something other than a direct relationship between self and other. Intimacies become a space within which self and home can be sought and experienced through emotional reflexivity (Holmes, 2010) generated by memories, practices of relationality and place-making through sociocultural encrustations. Skrbiš’s (2008) emphasis on migrant narratives rooted in emotions, Bradatan, Popan and Melton's (2010) concept of fluid social identities and Ahmed's (2000) challenge to the notion of home as a ‘fixity’ underpin our discussion on identities and positionalities. Reflecting on a ‘notional home,’ we touch upon our ‘practise of emotions and intimacies’ (MacLaren 2014, Everts and Wagner, 2012) in relation to home and host cultures, with reference to gender, race and class in renegotiating our transnational identities.
KW - Emotional reflexivity
KW - Home
KW - Intimacies
KW - Transnational migration
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85056994428&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.emospa.2018.11.004
DO - 10.1016/j.emospa.2018.11.004
M3 - Article
VL - 31
SP - 63
EP - 70
JO - Emotion, Space and Society
JF - Emotion, Space and Society
SN - 1755-4586
ER -