Young Germans in England Visiting Germany: Translocal Subjectivities and Ambivalent Views of ‘Home’

Abstract

Abstract Using the case of young German professionals living in England, this paper argues that visiting friends and relatives (VFR) is dominated by complexity and ambivalence, even in a seemingly straightforward migration. The geographical proximity between the migration destination and origin in the case study both creates and reveals this complexity and ambivalence through the potential of frequent visits in both directions. The research is based on one year of participant observation amongst young Germans in London, as well as 39 formal, in‐depth interviews with participants aged 23–42. All participants, both interviewees and others encountered during fieldwork, engaged in regular visits to Germany as well as receiving visitors from Germany, but displayed different, complex time‐space patterns of VFR. Bi‐local migrants were mostly recently arrived straight from their home region in Germany; the bi‐locality of their VFR mobilities was defined by their pattern of visiting, and being visited by, friends and relatives in their region of origin only. Multi‐local migrants had more geographically dispersed patterns of VFR behaviour, reflecting their more complex mobility histories, both internally within Germany and internationally, before moving to England. Finally, settled migrants had been in England a long time, often since school or university, and planned to stay; hence their VFR behaviour, either bi‐locally or multi‐locally defined, was less intense. Within this threefold categorisation, the paper explores the complex emotionality of VFR, including feelings of guilt and ambivalence, mainly towards parents and friends. By highlighting the complexity within one migration, it also adds more nuance to recent work of attempted typologies of VFR in migration. Theoretically, the analysis is located within the field of transnational urbanism and its more specific working concept of translocal subjectivities, which provides the operational setting for analysing migrants' feelings, tensions, and conflicts over their VFR activities and responsibilities. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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