HOMECOMING: AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF RETURN MIGRATIONS Ewa Nowicka, Homa Firouzbakhch

Contrary to often stated opinions, we can observe ubiquitous manifestation of relations between groups and their territories of origin. These relations range from emotional ties to practical connections. We witness a complex but infinitely vivid importance of the place of birth, the place of origin and the place of early age as the background of individual and collective identity of groups all over the world. The deterritorialization of the individual or group identity is certainly not a simple and all encompassing process in our times.

Why do migrants - voluntarily and permanently -return to their native lands? Is the return influenced by changes in their country of origin? Is it due to changes inside of the country of emigration, as the result of for instance a growing hostility, nationalistic tendencies, intolerance and xenophobia? Or is it due to the “ideology of return” cultivated by migrants in the host country?