Longing for landscape: Homesickness and place attachment among rural out-migrants in the 19th and 21st centuries

Migration research has begun to consider the emotions associated with moving. In so doing, it has engaged with geographies of home and feelings of homesickness, yet less so with emotional attachment to elements of the non-human environment. Historians, too, have begun to consider the human longing for natural landscapes, though historical examinations of homesickness tend to be similarly focused on longing for family and familiar built environments. This mixed methods research, conducted by a geographer and a historian, considers the environmental homesickness experienced by rural out-migrants. Out-migrated Vermonters have consistently expressed a longing for landscape from the nineteenth century to the present. Drawing on nineteenth-century archival materials and findings from a recent migration survey, the paper examines the production of place-based identities and enduring attachments to landscape over time. The research reveals the emotional dimensions of moving away and the ways in which people have attempted to remain connected to home. The work suggests expanding theorizations of home to include the natural environment. The intersection of individual identity, rural place attachment, and migration history is fertile ground for additional research.