Going back home through one's language

This book offers an interdisciplinary approach to the phenomenon of diaspora and transnational communities, political mobilisation, and the political paradigm of deconstruction and reconstruction of the state. Using new or extended concepts such as ‘fluid identity’ and ‘liquid diaspora’, the author provides a qualitative analysis and discourse in a multi-focused study on media representations, including prejudices and stereotypes of migrants, and examines the Romanian community living in Germany. Simultaneously tied to and rejected by two countries, diasporans create new forms of the concept of ‘home’ as they exhibit a multifaceted attachment to both their home and host countries and integrate to very different degrees. They escape their reality by consuming and creating media in their mother tongue, which they regard as a final refuge. This underlines the love-hate relationship they have with both their homeland and their host country, which is intensified by self-recrimination during their attempts to redefine their identity on their long journey to a place of loss and nostalgia, while striving to be accepted as ‘Europeans’ and part of a ‘nation’ but where ‘something is always missing’. Gabriela Goudenhooft, Associate Professor PhD, Head of the Department of Political Science and Communication Studies at the University of Oradea in Romania, with a BA in Philosophy and History, Bachelor of Law studies and a PhD in Philosophy, is also a researcher in inter- and transdisciplinary studies in areas like political philosophy, social and political imaginary, government, communication and discourse analysis.