Orientations to the Homeland

In Chapter 3, the focus is on migrants’ chronotopically mediated relationships to the homeland. The chapter begins with more detailed background information on Uzbeks and Iranian Azerbaijanis living in the United States. Then, data from diasporic gatherings are presented to demonstrate how migrants discursively invoke different personal and historical chronotopic understandings of the place that they left behind, and how these different chronotopes influence their ethnolinguistic identifications and their ongoing interaction in diaspora. In particular, the authors discuss how ethnic identity, national identity, and identification as an ethnolinguistic minority are related to one another through various chronotopic understandings of the homeland. They also discuss how chronotopic imaginations differ in relation to various historical time periods – e.g., soviet vs. post-soviet times – as well as how chronotopes may differ from one another depending on whether they are lived or imagined.