Transnational Return and Social Change by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Cultural Studies, Emigration & Immigration, Sociology
ISBN: 9781785270963
Publisher: Anthem Press
Published: 2019-07-31T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

DIVERSE RETURN MOBILITIES AND EVOLVING IDENTITIES AMONG RETURNEES IN LATVIA

Aija Lulle, Zaiga Krisjane and Andris Bauls

Introduction

More than twenty years ago Russell King (1996, 2000) wrote that return migration is the unwritten chapter in migration scholarship. Since then, literature on return migration has flourished. This more recent literature has also explored the diversity of return experiences and modalities, including different temporalities of return – so that it is more appropriate to speak of return mobilities rather return migration because mobilities can take very diverse forms, including visits, tourism and so on (King and Christou 2011). Return migration, on the other hand, has been more associated with the end of the migration cycle and permanent return. In this chapter on the Latvian case, we engage in conceptual debate and empirical analysis of comparisons and syntheses across both dimensions – return mobility and migration – and how these are related to transnational return. The latter implies that people can return either permanently or temporarily, but they keep ties across borders and, moreover, their return can be enabled by transnational networks.

First, conceptually and methodologically, we need to set alongside each other two historical waves of Latvian emigration and diaspora formation, which we label here for the sake of initial simplicity ‘old’ and ‘recent’ emigrants. Such historical attentiveness is crucial for understanding how transnational cultural values and norms are changing (Portes 2010) in different groups of return migrants in Latvia. Second, we comparatively explore three different temporal modes of physical return: ‘permanent’ return, diaspora tourism from the ‘old’ emigration and the practice of recent migrants returning to visit friends and relatives. However, rather than build our analysis by boxing our data into discrete categories, we wish to investigate similarities, blurrings and connections between the different return types, mobilities and experiences.

The Latvian case also illustrates the differential feasibility of return for different diaspora/emigrant groups. Return for those who escaped the Soviet occupation of Latvia during the Second World War and after – whom we call the ‘old’ migrants – was hardly possible until the late 1980s, since the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) regarded emigrants as traitors. Unable to return, the Latvian exiled communities abroad, especially in Western countries, developed a strong diasporic identity. They emphasized that they left Latvia for political reasons; their goal was to campaign for Latvian independence from the Soviet Union, not least because this would enable them to return to their homeland.

In contrast to the ‘political exile’ identity of the older diaspora, those who left Latvia after independence was re-established in 1991, and in much higher numbers after the country joined the EU in 2004, are usually perceived as ‘economic migrants’, even if not all of them self-identify with that totalizing label. For this second wave of emigration, there are no restrictions on return of any kind. Yet these migrants frequently express disappointment with the lack of opportunities in present-day Latvia, which prompted them to emigrate in the first place and are a deterrent to permanent return.

Two different reference

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