The emotional geographies of global return migration to Vermont

- Global return migrants experience feelings of estrangement abroad and on return.
- Explanations of return include cognitive, emotional, and relational dimensions.
- Global returnees make emotional and geographic adjustments upon return.
- Group interviews provide a location to observe emotional reflexivity in action.
- Further research on the role of community space for global returnees is warranted.

The emotional dimensions of moving are receiving increased attention from scholars of transnational migration, yet the experiences of global return migrants, especially to rural areas, remain under-represented in the literature. This mixed-methods research with global return migrants to Vermont identified a set of shared values that draw returnees back to the state and a number of entangled emotions that characterize their return. Insights into the emotional dimensions of return were taken from a set of three nested studies using different research methods: an on-line survey on residential decision-making (n = 3692), a second on-line survey designed for global return migrants (n = 35) and four group interviews with global returnees. The analysis focuses on the sense of isolation returnees reported and the specific emotional and geographic adjustments they made to negotiate their estrangement at home. The concept of emotional reflexivity is used to analyze the making of emotional adjustments in both written accounts of moving home and in the embodied interactions of group interview participants. Working from an understanding of migration as a practice, this paper offers insight into the challenges of global return and suggests the need for additional research on the role of community space and emotional reflexivity in homecoming experiences.