How to make a fresh start abroad?

The German anthropologist Hansjörg Dilger offers some tips for a successful new life in a new country. Two journalists from Spiegel asked him regarding the do’s and don’ts.

Journalists Kristin Haug and Verena Töpper published Lunch break on the Mekong (“Lunch break on the Mekong”, unpublished in French, 2021), a book in which they recount their meeting with expatriates living in the four corners of the world. The mirror regularly publishes the good sheets and has notably decided to highlight the advice of the anthropologist Hansjörg Dilger. The latter teaches social and cultural anthropology at the Free University of Berlin. He studies migrations, multinationality, urban ethnology and the anthropology of education and learning in African countries.

Here are some of his tips for a successful expatriation… and his return if necessary.

Make a new network

In general, if you leave as part of your job, you are supported by your company, you get to know your colleagues and you can count on them to settle in at first. But this help can quickly wither, remarks Hansjörg Dilger. It is then necessary “make an active effort to establish new and lasting contacts” :

“The easiest way to do this is to get in touch with people who are in a similar situation, ie who have also emigrated. In this case, however, there is a risk that you are only moving within your own bubble. If you want to establish contacts outside this bubble, you must speak the language of the country.”

Know how to adapt

Despite efforts to integrate, expatriation is not always an immediate success. There are many factors that can explain it. For example, Hansjörg Dilger points out that a Berliner who moves to a small town in the American Midwest is likely to have more difficulty than if he moves to Cape Town, the legislative capital of South Africa, more than 4 million inhabitants. Obviously, this is morally hard and can give “the feeling of remaining a permanent stranger”. Three solutions:

• 1) be well aware of cultural differences;
• 2) knowing how to accept the unknown;
• 3) change city without necessarily changing country. There is no need to question the whole expatriation project: a simple change of location can be enough to make the experience pleasant.

Preparing for your return

If things really become too difficult and integration has not been possible, the question of returning to one’s country of origin arises. But a return, for it to be successful, must be prepared as much as the departure. Hansjörg Dilger advises asking the right questions:

• Have I maintained my family and social ties in my country?
• Am I insured?
• What are the professional prospects for me?
• Did I criticize my country of origin so much when I left that my return will be perceived as a failure and that I will be blamed?

The anthropologist points out that “emigrants can also feel like foreigners when they return to their old homeland” if the return has not been well anticipated. But he adds that, in any case, “Emigrants will probably never be 100% part of another society. As a general rule, ties are maintained, across borders, with the country of origin.” In short, perfect integration is a chimera and you should never cut ties with your country. However, and if we follow this advice, emigration – or expatriation – can be a particularly rewarding experience.

Source

A large, very large investigative magazine, launched in 1947, aggressively independent, and which revealed several political scandals. Since its creation, the Spiegel chose the line of investigative journalism. It is the magazine of

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