Violence and Everyday Interactions: Estonian Return Migrants’ Narratives of Difference and Sameness
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Drawing on face-to-face and online interviews as well as a theoretical understanding of slow, symbolic and discursive violence, the chapter examines the way in which Estonian migrants reflect on their (possible) return to their home country from different parts of the world (Denmark, Finland, Great Britain, Ireland, the USA, etc.). Slow violence refers here to the potentially traumatic uncertainties of cross-border mobility and related political structures, while symbolic and discursive violence are present in everyday experiences in categorisations, hierarchisation, subaltern positions, and consequent exclusions and misrepresentations. The empirical focus of the chapter lies in discourses of difference and sameness the interviewees used while narrating their experiences both abroad and in Estonia. The narratives of interviewees reveal the ambivalence of identity positions available for them: the ways they are positioned and valued by other members of the society. The interviewees employ counter-speech to challenge categorizations – such as East-Europeans and ‘convenience refugees’ – imposed on them. However, this strategy can also be controversial, strengthening the stereotypes and increasing intragroup or intergroup tensions, some of the statements having even racist connotations. Returnees often acknowledge that their identity position as Estonians is problematic in many ways.
Source: Doria (University of Helsinki)
Author: Siim, Pihla Maria
Language: English
Subfield: Demography
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7204367434