Page 31 - IJSA, Vol. 2, No 1-2, 2019

International Journal of Science Annals, Vol. 2, No. 1-2, 2019

conventional thinking of the native country, does not being, his or her seen environment and surrounding
match the seen things and their position, their need or things.
function in the new country, and restoration of such In terms of things, as van Manen (2014, p. 306–307)
vision requires effort and even help of the others. writes, “materiality may guide our reflection to ask how
Things without Connection: Temporality things are experienced. The things are our world in its
New things however, do not immediately become one’s material thing like reality.” Thus, things are a world that
own. As it is described above, new things are strange, reflects our vision and point of view we might say our
can be intimidating because of their unpredictability or inner state. To the contrary, a relation with the things
may force to imagine a different life, which will be in a may depend on our point of views and experiences.
new country, and/or force to be aware of where he or she Gabriele felt that the house she and her family stayed in
is, as describe in the following anecdote: was not inhabited, there were none of the girl’s things,
Our new house is an old building with several floors. no scent of a family, and no common home intimacy.
The flooring on the second floor is unstable, squeaking. She felt that she would not live in this house for the
We go to the toilet or shower on the second floor in whole time, even though that was the first plan. In his
groups so it isn’t so scary because we have someone to essay on the “Hotel Room”, van Lennep (1987)
hold hands. All children slept in one room, the small describes how much intimate relations are in one or
children slept in one bed, the older on the floor. The another person’s home. Things, walls, the whole house
house seemed so dark, like those haunted houses in is filled with the scent, feelings, emotions that reflect the
movies. We can’t get used to it. It seemed to me like a life of a person living there. Van Lennep (1987) writes:
ghost (Gabriele). We always enter someone’s living room for the first
Gabriele was 11 years old when her family and she time with a certain hesitation or embarrassment, that is
moved to another country. She describes her memories into the room he “inhabits,” not because this room is an
about the first family house in the new country; the expression of himself, but because this dwelling refers
memories of that house are very vague, as if through a to a much more intimate relation than any expression by
mist. Her recollection is of an old, unstable structure: it him could ever be (p. 210).
seems that the house could have collapsed at any time. Like to a guest, to another person who gets into a new
The family lived there for more than 2 years, quite a long place, this place, even if it is called one’s own (mine),
time to get used to this place and get familiar with it. But has so “little” in itself (p. 212) of what can be called
for Gabriele, this new house never became a home, for one’s own (my) room. No human being belongs here: it
all that time the girl had imagined it as a temporal shelter does not have his or her scent, nor chosen things. This
– a place where she is just sleeping over for a few nights relation with the house shows the girl’s relation with her
before some permanent place is going to be found. But migration. She sees herself as a temporal guest in the
what is really behind that temporality? By the term new world of the new country. She does not recognize
temporality I mean state of being for the short or long herself in this world, since there is no relation with this
period of time and this period has a certain moment of country. A new house, new things in this house are the
ending, while something that lasts forever or always symbols of her being new in this country.
does not have an ending, speaking without any Meanwhile, van Lennep (1987) writes that even a tourist
philosophical reasoning. coming to a new city and living in a hotel room after a
From the theoretical point of view migration can be long day spent in the city comes back to the room to rest
defined as three types: short-term, long-term and and calls it “my room”. As the author writes, the
circular immigration (Europos Migracijos Tinklas, pronoun “my” in the expression “my room” does not
2010). The short-term immigration is defined as the express my possession of it, but precisely a relation
migration with a particular motive or purpose (work, between me and the room. On the very first moment a
study, family reunion, etc.), after which people return to person enters a new room, he or she begins “the process
the country of origin or move further to another country of inhabiting the room” (p. 212). And after some time in
(Europos Migracijos Tinklas, 2010). Meanwhile, long- the course of inhabiting “the relation of intimacy has
term (permanent) migration is migration with the goal to been created between this room and me” (p. 212). Van
stay permanently in the target country. Circular Lennep (1987) writes about experiences of grown-up
migration in general can be understood as a cycle of people who, after a certain period of time in a new place,
migration which is comprised of a migrant person’s assume control over things, they become dependent on
departure from his or her country of origin, stay for some him or her, and in this way become more and more “his”
time in another country, return to his or her country of or “hers”. And maybe with time such “dependency”
origin and repeated departure to a foreign country replaces a sense of temporality, and an immigrant
(Europos Migracijos Tinklas, 2010). Long-term and becomes more and more integrated into the new life.
circular migrations are different from short-term The Imagined Value of Things
migration in the length of the period of departure. New things may bring the opposite feelings, create the
However, from the phenomenological point of view, illusion of a better life, and a vision for the future that
each migration, regardless of its purpose and the planned soon may appear to be incorrect. Such a situation is
time of departure, especially at the beginning of described in an anecdote from Grynberg’s (2012)
migration stage, might be seen as temporal, in other dissertation:
words, a person might feel that this period of migration My father and uncle were waiting for us at Essendon
might end one day and he or she will go back home. airport. My uncle drove us to the flat my father had
Such temporality lies within the feelings of the human rented for us. It was on the ground floor located in a
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