IN-EQUALITIES AND VISITS BACK THE THERAPEUTIC POTENTIAL OF VISITING THE HOME-VILLAGE
IN-EQUALITIES AND VISITS BACK THE THERAPEUTIC POTENTIAL OF VISITING THE HOME-VILLAGE

Summary/Abstract: This paper provides a discussion of the therapeutic potential of migrants’ visits back to their home-village that can be understood as a healing tool for the emotional dimension. By analyzing letters excerpts of migrants to the USA and Australia of the post WWII period, Inequalities appear to characterize their migration experience. Therefore, by focusing on the prefix In as having both the meanings of “opposite of” and “inside”, In-equalities are theorized as both a condition of sameness and difference between members of the same group. Moreover, Inequalities considered as social inequalities, offering different opportunities to members of different social classes, appear to be among the reasons for leaving the home-village. This results in a condition of In-equality, i.e. sameness for the members of the same class, that is to say that of peasants as victims of social injustice who can find in emigration a way to access resources that are prevented in the home-village. Therefore, leaving can be perceived as a compelling resolution. This means that for the protagonists of the exodus, feelings such as pain and loss are inextricably part of their experience, highlighting how suffering and nostalgia constitute a condition of In-equality among migrants, that is to say a widespread state among members of the group. However, differences also exist among members of this group. Thus, a gap resulting in Inequalities, i.e. lack of equality, is that related to the possibility/impossibility of visiting the home-village that can have an impact on the subject’s psychological wellbeing.

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