Visit, separation, and deconstructing nostalgia - Russian students travel to their old home

The article theorizes the disruptive nature of immigrants' visit to the nat ive home in terms of temporality and space. Such a disruption demands that immigrants reevaluate their relationships to the old home. Probing visiting tales elicited from immigration stories, the authors discuss how separatio n from the old home is effectuated during visits to the native home through the simultaneous and contrary processes of (I) linking up with the familia r, (2) distancing from the old home, and (3) appraising personal change in the new home. The authors conclude that these processes deconstruct the per sonal and cultural sources that cultivate a sense of nostalgia. This articl e argues that such diffusion or conversely the nurturing of nostalgia is co ntext bound. The immigration stories were gathered by in-depth interviews c onducted with forty-three university students who immigrated to Israel from the former USSR in the "big wave" in the 1990s.