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Paper long abstract

My paper explores informants' reflections on mental and concrete crossing of national borders tying the local to the translocal and bridging the distance between these. Apart from memory, oblivion and nostalgia, time as a phenomenal notion forces informants to take a stand in everyday life.

I have tried to use a projective method attempting to avoid the informants relating predictable matters. Thus I also try to show how the conceptions and actions of the participants play an important part in the research. This method has made it possible to show the capacity of things or social practices to put memory in place multitemporally.

Studying transnational human existence implies a multisited research perspective suggesting a fundamental change, above all, in the conceptualization of movement and belonging. My paper provides ethnographic insights into the ways in which persons manage complex belonging within various contesting discourses in their present existence.