‘We belong to the land’: British immigrants in Australia contemplating or realising their return ‘home’ in later life
‘We belong to the land’: British immigrants in Australia contemplating or realising their return ‘home’ in later life
This chapter investigates perspectives on belonging and attachment to native place. Biographical interviews were carried out in the UK and Australia, in 2010, with older people who emigrated to Australia in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Interviews reveal that strong feelings often come to the fore as ageing immigrants grapple with their motivations to return to their homeland. The ‘magnet’ of country of origin as home exerts a powerful, sometimes overwhelming, and often innately resonating force. As such, homeland represents a place ageing immigrants truly belong to and, indeed, must return to while there is time. However, return migration decision-making is a complex process, and can involve weighing in the balance: personal aspirations and family obligations; ambiguous national identity and cultural affiliation; life course transitions and ancestral identity; nostalgia and birthright.
Keywords: Belonging and identity, Organic, Competing priorities, Life course transitions
Policy Press Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
