`Migrant labour'

Abstract

This article uses case studies of the 6th-century BCE return of the Babylonian exiles to Judea and of the 19th century elaboration by Theodor Herzl of the project of Zionism as means of examining the wider issue of the relation of identity to the experience of exile. It argues that persons and communities which perceive themselves as displaced construct their `authentic' identities in terms not of some sort of originary culture but with defensive reference to experiences in exile which they consider antagonistic. `Identity' is a mobilization of some elements of a cultural repertoire against a threatening other and that antagonism — although nominally to be purged when the full identity it impedes is realized — remains fundamental to identity. As a result, I contend, exiles who return to their `homelands' must, if they are to there find the identities the idea of return promises, `discover' suitable surrogates for the antagonists they have left behind.

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