ABSTRACT
How can homecoming of family members be described, if the family experiences cycles of reunification and separation time and time again because of circular migration? Family members who migrate in the inner-European context are moving in an increasing circular mobility. As a result, their family life is shaped by periods of physical absence and presence. In periods of absence they try to maintain their family life over distance by using digital communication technologies. In this process, they create new intersections of mediated and physical-local family spaces. In my contribution I discuss the reciprocal reunification of the family as a problem of homecoming based on two empirical examples of Polish families. How do family systems of relevance achieve congruence during periods of remigration, i.e. after a physical absence of the migrating parent for several months? The aim is to display the importance of both spaces – mediated and physical-local – during this process of reintegration and to show that they cannot be conceptualised as separated, but as referring to each other.
