A route to roots: The negotiation of identity, sense of home and belonging throughout second-generation Iranian immigrants’ homecoming trips and ethnic returns

The purpose of this study is to understand the narratives of identity, home, and sense of belonging of second-generation Iranian immigrants. Despite the current economic and political situation in Iran, second-generation Iranian immigrants yearn for moving to Iran. Hence, their migration decision is associated with more than solely economic drives and is best explained by their narratives of identity and self. Relying on narratives of identity, my aim is to explore the extent to which their homecoming trips could influence their identity, sense of home and belonging and find its link to ethnic return decisions, which so far has been studied implicitly rather than explicitly. Using a qualitative research design, 14 secondgeneration Iranian immigrants were interviewed. Out of the 14, some actually migrated to Iran and others were considered potential returnees. Five themes were identified from semi-structured interviews: VFR experiences, socio-cultural and political differences, language, life stages and transnational ways of being and belonging, and dichotomy of ethnic return. VFR experiences were found to be the main influence in creating a feeling of being at home in Iran, at the same time a feeling of being an outsider in Iran. Besides, traveling back to parental homeland (Iran) also encompassed experiencing unfamiliar sociocultural and political encounters, whereby the pre-existing sense of belonging to Iran was either dampened or created curiosity to exploring this unfamiliarity as second-generation immigrants. Proficiency in their Persian language was found to be one of the main causes of feeling as an outsider in Iran, yet also as a source of attachment and identity. Meanwhile, second-generation Iranian immigrants’ sense of belonging and home towards Iran was not only derived from their homecoming trips, but they also (re)constructed emotional attachments to Iran by engaging in activities that helped them (re)connect to their roots. Finally, the ethnic return decisions are a multi-layered phenomenon caused by feelings of having hybrid homes and identities. Therefore, they are not necessarily a temporary decision and they indirectly relate to homecoming trips, as homecoming trips contribute to building hybrid senses of home and belonging.