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Accepted Paper:

Belonging or longing to belong? Young, mobile transnationals searching for their place in the world  
Saija Benjamin (University of Helsinki)

Paper short abstract:

How to construct meaning around belonging when life context is extensively mobile and intercultural? This paper displays initial results of a study on internationally mobile adolescents with transnational roots.

Paper long abstract:

Within the group of labor migrants, there is a pool of "executive nomads" who pursue their professional assignments from one country to another, and again to another. While labor migration is a common occurrence, it is the children of the labor migrants that are of research interest in terms of belonging; born "en route" someplace in the world and growing up amidst international relocations, these children are migrants with no place of departure and no place of settlement. Many of these children also have transnational roots, a fact that further blurs their conceptions of 'home' and belonging.

The unusual migration pattern of these individuals and the putative absence of a 'home country' in its traditional sense enables examination of meaning making around belonging and identity from a new, more globalized perspective.

This paper discusses the initial results of a study conducted in Czech Republic and Finland among transnational and internationally mobile adolescents. It presents an early understanding of the ways in which these young people construct meaning around their 'selves' and negotiate their place and belonging in the world.

Panel P01
Behind the border? Memory and narration of diaspora, exile, transnationalism and crossing borders
  Session 1