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- Title
'Equally at home on Beacon Hill and Hill 16'? Transnational identities among Irish-born return migrants from the United States.
- Authors
RALPH, DAVID
- Abstract
In this article, I examine the transnational identities that return migrants create upon resettlement in their country of origin. Specifically, I draw on interviews with Republic of Ireland-born return migrants from the United States between the years 1996 and 2006. The analysis shows that return migrants - like other migrant groups - maintain and establish translocal identities and practices that straddle 'here' (Ireland) and 'there' (United States) upon return. However, the article goes further, asking why returnees develop such border-spanning social fields. Some recent scholarship suggests that some migrants develop transnational identities as an adaptive response to a hostile receiving society. The analysis here shows a similar process at play for certain return migrants in the post-return environment. Doubtless, for some returnees, a transnational identity is a natural outgrowth of having spent several years in the United States. Yet for others, one can better explain this transnational identity as a coping strategy to buffer resettlement anxieties and disappointments.
- Subjects
RETURN migrants; IRISH Americans; TRANSNATIONALISM; LAND settlement; SOCIAL adjustment
- Publication
Global Networks, 2014, Vol 14, Issue 4, p477
- ISSN
1470-2266
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/glob.12046