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August 04, 2009

Existential migration

I've just been reading the Wikipedia article on 'existential migration' which is, apparently:

a concept derived from phenomenological research (Madison, 2006) into the lived experience of voluntary migrants who have chosen to leave their country of origin in order to live as foreigners in a new land.

Existential migration differs from wanderlust, exile, economic migration or other types of involuntary expatriation:

'Existential migration' is conceived as a chosen attempt to express something fundamental about existence by leaving one’s homeland and becoming a foreigner.

As I say, I've been reading the article and I'm a bit baffled. Academic researchers do like categories, don't they? Especially in the social sciences - I guess you have to draw lines around things somehow or other so as to not be overwhelmed, but I think they've missed the mark a bit here.

My reasons for coming to Paris from Copenhagen were complicated. Love was one reason. Getting away from the issues in Copenhagen, some extrinsic, like the weather, and some intrinsic, like my increasingly odd social circle, was another. And, economically, I did get a job here - but I only looked after I knew I was moving anyway.

So am I an existential migrant? In one way, I don't think so. It's intensely irritating to not be conversant, let alone fluent, in the host language of your chosen country of residence. I'm not at all that fond of being a 'foreigner' in a country, especially when natives of the country in question treat you like one.

On the other hand, the experiences you go through when living in another country tell you things about yourself and your cultural biases that you would never have gone through if you'd stayed in the country of your birth. I'd never considered what a creature of my time and culture I was until I heard a bunch of drunken Copenhageners start singing "Fy Fy Skamme Skamme" at a party. Small things, and stuff that can be learned, but the sadness is in realising that you will always be an outsider to those people, and that cultural gaps can be small, but then so are the gaps in drain covers, and you can still lose your keys down them.

On the third hand, apart from the learning experience, there is something oddly liberating about arriving in a country and not knowing anything about it. I remember first coming to Copenhagen and spending many happy times on the bus being pleasantly baffled by shop window contents, because I couldn't read the shop signs, and the science of window dressing has taken off in interesting directions Denmark. It's not unusual to see a bowler hat in a butcher's shop, or cabbages, or bicycles, in a clothes shop window. Also, not knowing what the irritating thirteen year old girls sitting behind you on the bus are talking about doesn't make them less irritating, but it does make it easier to maintain the illusion of listening to birdsong or a babbling stream rather than language. It's only when you begin to understand the language that the illusion is shattered and you realize the true horror of accidentally eavesdropping on Danish teenage love crush gossip. As Douglas Adams wrote, birdsong sounds very nice, but if you actually understood it, it would be nothing more than tedious debates about weight/speed/wingspan ratios and territory.

Posted by daen at August 4, 2009 08:52 AM

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