Humans have always migrated

Even though the fact of migration is as old as mankind, the UN reports that there are more people on “the migration move” now than ever before. They say that 244 million persons are in the process of migrating.

As far as I have been able to see in my office, collaborating with people in the migration process, the process of migrating is not an easy one. Some migration processes fail. Why someone migrates, what makes it work, and why it fails is still a huge question that some of us find interesting to investigate.

That there is a connection, a cognitive-emotional bond between us humans and our settings is a fact. This attachment to what we call home is a common human experience this is why moving isn’t as easy as it might sound. Ignoring this fact or minimizing its effects might make the emigration process harder.

Attachment to a place

It is no secret that people develop a strong attachment to what we call home. Nor do people relate home related to a specific place, and this is related to a sense of control, predictability, and stability. To leave this place called home and go somewhere new generates stress and puts all our systems on guard. Generates anxiety which works as fuel. We need to go back to the stable mode and that implies an effort.

While migrating became easier to pursue, traditional theories have become somewhat redundant as moving has become more fluid, circular, and frequent and various intersecting motivations are more appropriate in explaining people’s contemporary mobility. Hence, an “intersection of motivations” is relevant in relation to decisions to remain or go back “home”.

The UN reports that the number of people that return has been increasing. They say that return migration has increased, and the numbers go between 20 and 50%. There are many studies around what makes a person migrate, but there are few investigations, and I have not found precise data, on what makes a person return. According to the same source, these immigrants leave their host family within five years of their arrival.

Return migration

As far as I am able to see with the small portion of people, I have attended, sometimes what ends up happening is that the person who has left his or her country, just doesn’t find what he or she expected to find abroad, or just isn’t it worth the effort of being away from the known, and decides to go back. Reasons are many and different as people are. Are they right or wrong,<not able to say? The reason that makes one person to return to their homeland might not be valid for someone else…Io leave or come back is a personal choice.

On both, the issue I see is that when they go back to their homeland it is almost a new migration. The person who comes back is not the same. The people and the place are no longer the same Change is part of the game and they will have to readjust to this new place. It’s a new move..This is what is called return migration and as I mentioned before, growing and understudy

Should or leave or should I stay

For me, home is where my heart is. As I see a home as a part of my self-definition, I made a home in every place where every place I lived. I considered each of those places my home at one time or another, whether it was for months or years I made it mine. Home then was where I was, where my heart is. Me myself, that was my home.

So, if you have decided to emigrate if you chose to move to another country just remember to allow yourself the time to make that place you choose your home. This does not mean you regret what you left; it means your home is where your heart is.