Do You belong here?

Do You belong here?

People have moved and changed place ever since, whatever the aim. From single curiosity to great conquests; to run away from the climate, from themselves or from others; for fun and pleasure; to travel, to know or to have sex; or just to improve their life conditions –indeed, nowadays, «one of the most simple economic explanations of migration is that people move with the aim of improving their situation»[1].
So, having migration in consideration as a «kind of space mobility»[2], Everett S. Lee defined it like «a constant or almost constant change of residence»[3]; that goes from a simple flat change, in the same «building, block or neighbourhood, through national urban, rural -to north or to south, to east or to west -, into transnational migrations»[4].
Of course, and because there are several kinds of motifs to migrate, not all the migration movements are legal. Or because one’s a justice fugitive or a war or some natural catastrophe refugee, or simply because of the strict national and international migration laws.
If in one hand we have, like the article 13th of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states it -

Article 13[5]
1. Toute personne a le droit de circuler librement et de choisir sa résidence à l'intérieur d'un Etat.
2. Toute personne a le droit de quitter tout pays, y compris le sien, et de revenir dans son pays.

-, the possibility to leave our own country and move to another one; on the other hand we do have a lot of national and international migration laws to regulate (?) those same migrations and changes; so one can sometimes find himself, like Manu Chao once said, not so «welcome»:

“Pa una ciudad del norte
Yo me fui a trabajar
Mi vida la dej
Entre Ceuta y Gibraltar
Soy una raya en el mar
Fantasma en la ciudad
Mi vida va prohibida
dice la autoridad”[6]

As seen before, not only illegally do people migrate. Even when they do it legally, it just does not make them feel absolutely integrated in their new destinies. In the new towns; neighbourhoods; blocks; buildings, groups; works; roles, etc…
We need to have in consideration the integration and identity issues here.
And, since «identity is perceived as being dependent on social roles within a local or national group»[7] and, since «the stranger is by his very nature no owner of land – land not only in the physical sense but also metaphorically as a vital substance which is fixed, if not in space, than at least in an ideal position within the social environment»[8], it is likely to happen to people not to get so well, or so easily, integrated. Or, even, to face some conflicts in between – with themselves and/or with others.
After all, they’re (we are?) strangers. Just like Georg Simmel once said: « If wondering, considered as a state of detachment from every given point in space, is the conceptual opposite of attachment to any point, then the sociological form of the stranger presents the synthesis, as it were, of both of these properties»[9].

Please, do feel free to comment.
We do prefer to have the comments in english but, if one just wishes to comment in his own mother language, he/she is absolutely free to do so, and we’ll have to manage with the translation.

Takk kærlega fyrir.

P.S. – the Picture is from a portuguese temporary worker.


[1] Ulrike Schuerkens, “Transnational Migrations and Social Transformations: A Theoretical Perspective”, London, Current Sociology, July 2005, Vol. 53(4), pág.535 to 553.
[2] Rui Pena Pires, Migrações e Integração, Oeiras, Celta Editora, 2003, pág. 57.
[3] Everett S. Lee Cit. In. Rui Pena Pires, Migrações e Integração, Oeiras, Celta Editora, 2003, pág. 57.
[4] Idem, Ibidem, pág. 58.
[5] Article 13, tiré de la “Déclaration universelle des droits de l'homme” In http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/frn.htm.
[6] Lyric from Clandestino song, from Manu Chao's album Clandestino, Label Ark 21, 1998.
[7] Marinus Ossewaarde, “Cosmopolitanism and the Society of Strangers” In Current Sociology, London, May 2007, Vol. 55 (3), pages. 367 to 388.
[8] Georg Simmel, On Individuality and Social Forms, Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 1971, page. 144.
[9] Idem, Ibidem, page. 143.