Transnational practices, ancestral return and adaptation of Romanian Czechs resettled to Czechia after 1989
Abstract
The aim of the article is to examine the consequences of resettlement of Romanian Czechs from the Banat region to Czechia after 1989. Special emphasis is put on the role of various (individual, institutional) transnational practices and relations, migration networks and the Czech origin of returnees in their migrationdecision making and adaptation process.
On the background of notions of 'ancestral return' or 'counter-diasporic migration', the study also discuss key questions whether the counter-diasporic migrants are rather returnees or the fi rst migrant generation of Romanian Czechs, what the shared narratives of home are and how they, along with diasporic consciousness, affect migration of Romanian Czechs to the ancestral homeland. We argue that the experience with migration to the ancestral homeland exposes migrants to rethink their own identity as well as the relationship to a country of imagined exile and a country of imagined home.
The study presents results of research conducted in Romania in 2012 and Czechia in 2013 and 2015 combining qualitative (monitoring, interviews with key informants, participant observation) and quantitative methods (questionnaire survey).