ORAL HISTORY: MIGRATION AND LOCAL IDENTITIES - Academia

Migration as a Catalyst for ValuesHomecomingDuring the typical nine month assignment in Guernsey, the peopleembrace home in Latvia in terms of growing longing, expectation,and difficulty which ends with their departure. In the last monthsbefore my departure for home, the longing became more intense everyday. I could not wait to be at home; it was so difficult, and if somebody startedto whine loudly with longing, it was almost unbearable (Sanita). Indeed,this longing for the homeland, expressed by many informants, temptsa comparison to pregnancy (grūtniecība in Latvian), and the physicalmatch point when the plane touches the Latvian ground, I feel like a motherwhen she takes her first-born and nurses, as Aina eloquently described itto me, is like a birth and a meeting with someone who until then waspresent but not visible.However, being “back home” often sharpens the sense of rupture.“Not only does arranging and organizing the return often causeanxiety, but the return itself involves stress and tension” (Salih, 2002).Border guards at the Riga airport meet a thrilled home-comer with stonefaces, and mom and sister are just simply unable to understand that I cannotearn the mortgage loan back in a couple of years. These experiencesare later reflected regarding their social identity: do I want to belong tothis community; do I want to be governed in this way? It should also bestressed that over time and under conditions of strong attachment tovarious social spaces in Guernsey, for some a “homecoming” to Latviabecomes transformed into a “holiday” to Latvia.30Empowered by “out of place”Although for the majority “a real home” is anchored in Latvia,everyday transnationalism is also accompanied by ontological insecurity,which is closely linked to and influenced by economic, social,and political insecurity in Latvia. Sometimes belonging to a place isdescribed as “neither here nor there” or as living in limbo. On the otherhand, this “neither here nor there” is valued higher than “exclusively in