The Enigma of the Homeland
Editors Catherine Gomes & Olivia Guntarik, RMIT University, Australia
We invite contributions for an edited collection of reflective essays,
creative writings and poems that reflect on the meaning of home.
The notion of â??the homelandâ?? connotes soothing images of a place deeply
rooted in the past. It can refer to the nation as a â??homeâ?? or a
domestic space through the use of familial
tropes. The homeland is inextricably tied to the discourse of diaspora
and exile and to ideas of loss, longing and nostalgia. The homeland
is oneâ??s birthplace, one that you were uprooted from and perhaps still
desired, but could never truly return. Salman Rushdie writes about the
idea of â??imaginary homelandsâ?? to evoke the concept of home in terms of
displacement and its instability. Homeland also implies a complex
historical connection, a shared memory of the past tied to the land
itself. Indigenous cultural knowledge, for instance, often emphasizes a
relationship with place and the ancestral beings that created it.
The homeland is an enigma and has become a fluid concept which is not
necessarily exclusively associated with country of birth due to the
transnational movements of people. Such movements of individuals occur
for a variety of reasons that include work, business, lifestyle, study,
family, trauma, humanitarian and human rights. Both permanent and
temporary migrants have been subject to a wealth of experience that
confuses the concept of â??homeâ??. The fluidity of the concept of home
usually lies with the experiences of the migrant both in the home and
host country. Some migrants are forced to leave their birth countries
because of personal or national trauma (eg. human rights violations,
politics, war and natural disasters), while others leave out of choice
and for less traumatic reasons (eg. lifestyle, work, study and family).
While some migrants settle in their host countries with minimal
discomfort, others encounter challenges in settlement such as hostility
and suspicion. Some migrants more easily integrate into their host
society by perhaps assimilating into already established ethnic or
cultural communities. Others find assimilation more difficult because of
the lack of community support. However, joining an established ethnic
or cultural community can also result in less assimilation into the
wider community, therefore creating a dissonance in the concept of home
for the migrant.
These different notions of home and homeland constitute salient and
evocative spatial metaphors, illustrating the ways our lexicon can
produce a range of meanings, interpretations and political uses around
these concepts. While such ideas and tropes remain pertinent, the extent
to which the homeland provokes counter discourses around
deterritorialisation, displacement, dispossession, travel, migration and
mobility, remain less certain. Such uncertainty invites an urgent call
to re-evaluate the meanings attached to the concept of the homeland or
what constitutes â??homeâ?? for people today.
This collection aims to highlight the often ignored intersections
between issues of home and host country, the foreign and the familiar,
and imaginary and concrete homelands. State-centred views of what
constitutes the homeland continue to dominate, but what is apparent is
that these limit our perspectives to understanding the connections
between home, citizenship, displacement, migration, belonging and
identity.
We invite reflective essays, which may address questions such as the
following in order to develop new perspectives on concepts of home and
homeland.
ï?§ What are the cultural connotations and semantic implications of
the word â??homelandâ???
ï?§ In what ways is the concept of â??the homelandâ?? an enigma?
ï?§ What does it mean to think of our respective nations/countries
of citizenship or birthplaces in the current context of mobility and
flux?
ï?§ What does it mean to desire a lost homeland?
ï?§ In what ways does homeland embody a sense of nostalgia?
ï?§ In what ways does the homeland provide a new paradigm of
national identity?
ï?§ What does homeland mean when it is threatened or destroyed by
military occupation, invasion, war, genocide, terrorism or natural
disaster?
ï?§ In what ways has travel shaped new ideas about â??selfâ?? and
â??homeâ???
ï?§ If dispossessed people share pasts that are fragmented, is a
classical notion of â??homeâ?? necessary to sustain who they are?
ï?§ Where is there room for migrants in the space of the homeland as
a site of indigenous origins or ethnic homogeneity?
ï?§ How do migrants find inclusion in the homeland? How are they
excluded from the discourses of homeland?
ï?§ How do migrants and their families identify with their adopted
homeland, even if they relocate their homelands elsewhere?
ï?§ What does it mean to go back and forth between two homes?
ï?§ How have indigenous, migrant, refugee or settler communities
conceptualised the notion of homeland?
We also encourage a variety of types of contributions, including
creative submissions, such as storytelling, poems and other alternative
formats. Creative submissions may include reflections on the above or
following questions:
ï?§ What is the meaning of home?
ï?§ Is home associated with the birth country or is it associated
with the place of settlement?
ï?§ What does it mean to return home?
ï?§ What does it mean to live in exile?
ï?§ What are your experiences when you return home?
ï?§ What does it mean to be connected to different cultural spaces?
ï?§ What are the experiences that you face in terms of identity and
belonging when you return to your birth country?
ï?§ Can you identify with the culture of the place that you left
upon returning?
ï?§ Why leave or choose not to leave home?
ï?§ Why return or choose not to return home?
A 300-word abstract for academic papers, along with a short biography,
should be sent by 30 November 2009 to (catherine.gomes /at/ rmit.edu.au)
Please send all completed submissions by 1 June 2010.
