Abstract
Using structured telephone interviews this research focuses on how Canadian migrants living in the United States experience and describe home. We argue that the globalisation of peoples’ lives, transnationalism and the concomitant creation of transnational social spaces have greatly affected the meaning of home for migrants. The understandings of home that result 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 these circumstances Canadian migrants experience home as multi-dimensional, pluri-local, and characterized by regular movement across the U.S.–Canada border. When asked specifically about feeling at home upon re-entry to the U.S. many respondents answered yes. However, many interviewees qualified their answers by describing home in different ways and associating different aspects of their lives with each country. Canada as home was most often described in terms of family, while home in the U.S. was associated with work. Respondents also differentiated between feeling at home once they reached their residence as opposed to feeling unwelcome at the U.S. border.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adams, J. (1984). Presidential address: The meaning of housing in America. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 74, 51–526.
Ahmed, S. (1999). Home and away narratives of migration and estrangement. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 2, 329–347.
Al-Ali, N., & Koser, K. (2002). Transnationalism, international migration and home. In N. Al-Ali & K. Koser (Eds.), New approaches to migration: Transnational communities and the transformation of home (pp. 1–14). London: Routledge.
Allan, G., & Crow, G. (1989). Introduction. In G. Allan & G. Crow (Eds.), Home and family: Creating the domestic sphere (pp. 1–13). London: MacMillan Press.
Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Armbruster, H. (2002). Homes in crisis Syrian Orthodox Christians in Turkey and Germany. In N. Al-Ali & K. Koser (Eds.), New approaches to migration: Transnational communities and the transformation of home (pp. 17–33). London: Routledge.
Basch, L., Glick-Schiller, N., & Szanton-Blanc, C. (1994). Nations unbond: Transnational projects, postcolonial predicaments, and deterritorialized nation-states. New York: Gordon and Breach.
Bowlby, S., Gregory, S., & McKie, L. (1997). ‘Doing home’: Patriarchy, caring and space. Women’s Studies International Forum, 20, 343–350.
Boyd, M. (1989). Family and personal networks in international migration: Recent developments and new agendas. International Migration Review, 23, 638–670.
Brah, A. (1996). Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting identities. London: Routledge.
Clifford, J. (1994). Diasporas. Cultural Anthropology, 9, 302–338.
Cohen, R. (1997). Global Diasporas: An introduction. London: London University press.
Cooper, B. & Grieco, E. (2004). The foreign born from Canada in the United States. Migration Policy Institute. Available at <http://www.migrationinformation.org/USFocus. Retrieved April 30, 2007.
DeVoretz, D. (1999). The brain drain is real and it costs us. Policy Options, September, 18–24.
Douglas, M., & Isherwood, B. (1979). The world of goods. New York: Basic Books.
Faist, T. (1998). Transnational social spaces out of international migration: Evolution, significance, and future prospects. Archives of European Sociology, XXXIX, 213–247.
Faist, T. (2000). The volume and dynamics of international migration and transnational social spaces. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Giddens, A. (1985). The constitution of society. Oxford: Polity Press.
Glick-Schiller, N., Basch, L., & Szanton-Blanc, C. (1992). Toward a transnational perspective on migration. New York: New York Academy of Sciences.
Glick-Schiller, N., Basch, L., & Szanton-Blanc, C. (1996). Transnationalism: a new analytic framework for understanding migration. In N. L. Glick-Schiller, C. Basch, & L. C. Szanton-Blanc (Eds.), Towards a transnational perspective on migration (pp. 1–24). New York: New York Academy of Sciences.
Glick-Schiller, N., & Fouron, E. G. (1999). Terrains of blood and nation: Haitian transnational social fields. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22, 340–366.
Goodman, A. C. (1978). Hedonic prices, price indices and housing markets. Journal of Urban Economics, 5, 471–481.
Guarnizo, L. E., & Smith, P. M. (1998). The locations of transnationalism. In P.M. Smith & L.E. Guarnizo (Eds.), Transnationalism from below (pp. 3–34). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Hardwick, S. (2005). The ties that bind: Transnational migrant networks at the Canadian-US borderlands. American Review of Canadian Studies, 35, 667–683.
Hardwick, S. (2006). Nodal Heterolocalism and Transnationalism in the US-Canada border. The Geographical Review, 96, 212–219.
Iqbal, M. (1999). Are we losing our minds? Policy Options, September, 34–38.
Kain, J. F., & Quigley, J. M. (1970). Measuring the value of housing quality. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 65, 532–548.
Kistivo, P. (2001). Theorizing transnational immigration: A critical review of current efforts. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 24, 549–577.
Kymlicka, W., & Norman, W. (1994). Return of the citizen: A survey of recent work on citizenship theory. Ethics, 104, 352–381.
Larsen, L. (2004). The foreign-born population in the United States: 2003. Current population reports, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau, pp. 20–551.
Levitt, P. (2001). The transnational villagers. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Ley, D. (2004). Transnational spaces and everyday lives. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers (NS), 29, 151–164.
Li, W. (1998). Anatomy of a new ethnic settlement: The Chinese ethnoburb in Los Angeles. Urban Studies, 35, 479–502.
Mallett, S. (2004). Understanding home: A critical review of the literature. The Sociological Review, 52(1), 62–89.
Nowicka, M. (2007). Mobile locations: Construction of home in a group of mobile transnational professionals. Global Networks, 7, 69–86.
Palm, R. (1978). Spatial segmentation of the urban housing market. Economic Geography, 54, 210–221.
Papastergiadis, N. (1998). Dialogues in Diasporas: Essays and conversations on cultural identity. London & New York: Rivers Orman Press.
Portes, A. (1996a). Global villagers: The rise of transnational communities. American Prospect, 25, 74–77.
Portes, A. (1996b). Transnational communities: Their emergence and significance in the contemporary world-system. In R. P. Korneniewicz & W.C. Smith (Eds.), Latin America in the world-economy (pp. 151–168). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Portes, A. (1997). Globalization from below: The rise of transnational communities. Available at <http://www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk/working papers. retreived May 5, 2006.
Portes, A. (1999a). Conclusion: Toward a new world—The origins and effects of transnational activities. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22, 463–477.
Portes, A. (1999b). Immigration theory for a new century: Some problems and opportunities. In C. Hirschman, P. Kasinitz, & J. DeWind (Eds.), The handbook of international migration: The American experience (pp. 21–33). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Portes, A., Guarnizo, L. E., & Landolt, P. (1999). The study of transnationalism: Pitfalls and promise of an emergent research field. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22, 217–237.
Povrzanović Frykman, M. (2002). Homeland lost and gained Croatian diaspora and refugees in Sweden. In N. Al-Ali & K. Koser (Eds.), New approaches to migration: Transnational communities and the transformation of home (pp. 118–137). London: Routledge.
Purkayastha, B. (2005). Negotiating ethnicity: Second generation South Asian Americans traverse a transnational world. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Rapport, N., & Dawson, A. (1998). Migrants of identity: Perceptions of home in a world of movement. Oxford: Berg.
Rosen, S. (1974). Hedonic prices and implicit markets. Journal of Political Economy, 82, 34–55.
Rouse, R. (1991). Mexican migration and the social space of postmodernism. Diaspora, 1, 8–24.
Tölölyan, K. (1991). The nation-state and its others: In lieu of a preface. Diaspora, 1, 3–7.
Tölölyan, K. (1996). Rethinking diaspora(s): Stateless power in the transnational moment. Diaspora, 5, 3–36.
Turner, B. (1993). Contemporary problems in the theory of citizenship. London: Sage Publications.
van Hsear, N. (1998). New Diasporas: The mass exodus, dispersal and regrouping of migrant communities. London: London University Press.
Vertovec, S. (2001). Transnational and identity. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 27, 573–582.
Wellman, B., & Leighton, B. (1979). Networks, neighborhoods, communities. Urban Affairs Quarterly, 14, 363–390.
Wellman, B. (Ed.) (1999). Networks in the global village: Life in contemporary communities. Boulder, Co: Westview Press.
Wong, L. (2001). Home away from home? Transnationalism and the Canadian citizenship regime. In P. Kennedy & V. Roudometof (Eds.), Communities across borders: New immigrants and transnational cultures (pp. 161–181). London: Routledge.
Zhao, J. (2000). Brain Drain and Brain Gain: The migration of knowledge workers from and to Canada. Education Quarterly Review, 6, 8–35. Statistics Canada Catalogue No. 81-003. Statistics Canada. Ottawa: Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the many individuals who gave so freely of their time and thoughts in completing the survey on which this research is based.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lucas, S., Purkayastha, B. “Where is home?” Here and there: transnational experiences of home among Canadian migrants in the United States. GeoJournal 68, 243–251 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-007-9073-0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-007-9073-0