Paper short abstract:

New trends of relativist turn disguise the fact that the traditional attachment to the place has not disappeared even today. My fieldwork in Siberian Estonian villages highlights rather traditional meanings of home. In paper I analyse the different levels of home of Siberian Estonians.

Paper long abstract:

Migration has been called a phenomenon of the post modern world and one has noted that the diaspora experience that one previously had described as rootlessness and alienation, has currently become a classical phenomenon. These new trends disguise the fact that the traditional attachment to the place has not disappeared even today. While conducting fieldwork, ethnologists and folklorists still experience classical manifestations of attachment to place, where home is perceived as the place of security and identification. My fieldwork in Siberian Estonian villages highlights rather traditional meanings of home: home as the orientated centre, the concentric structure of the perceived home territory and the positioning of social groups on the we vs others-axis as per this concentric structure.

The emigration from Estonia to Siberia took place in the second half of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century. The Estonian settlements in Siberia were formed on an ethnic basis and they were typical little communities. Village is the place where the settlers live and act. It is the place that affords identity. In my paper I analyse the different levels of territorial identity of Siberian Estonians: home, village, neighbourhood, Siberia as identificator.