Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the relationship between migration and identity of transnational migrants through the notion of home. It explores the ways the concept of home is perceived by Slovene returned emigrants and their descendants.

Paper long abstract:

Migration presents a complex phenomenon not solely related to geographical mobility, but at the same time influencing variety of personal and social transformations while depending on diverse internal and external factors. While considering these factors, my intention is to approach the remigration through the frame of transnationalism that indicates processes, activities, individuals and their identifications across national borders and connects them in broader space, both physical and cognitive. In the last century, many Slovenians emigrated to various locations around the globe, both as political and economic emigrants. In recent decades, especially after Slovenian independency, many of them or their descendants have returned.

In this paper, I would like to consider the effect that migrations have on constitution of 'selves' and 'others' in relation to home. Migrations involve a splitting of home as place of origin and home as place as the sensory world of everyday experience. An essential point of this paper relates to the fact that globalisation, transnationalism and the concomitant creation of transnational social spaces have greatly affected the meaning of home for returned migrants and have consequently influenced on their construction of identity. I intend to present the understandings of home that reflect the reality of living in social worlds that span two countries and the development of decentred multiple attachments and feelings of belonging in more than one place. In response to above described circumstances, Slovenian remigrants tend to experience home as multi-dimensional, pluri-local, and characterized by regular movement across the state borders.