You can never go “home” again: reflections on the emotional impact of home ethnography

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to highlight the complex and dynamic emotional journey for the returning home ethnographer. Design/methodology/approach In this paper, I reflect on my experiences of conducting a multimethod home ethnography undertaken between 2014 and 2018 in Northern Ireland, which explored the emotional legacy of the Northern Ireland conflict, euphemistically referred to as “The Troubles”. Throughout the process, I maintained textual and digital reflective journals to record my observations, thoughts and feelings. In reviewing these journals, I identified that they traced my evolving emotions as they related to my perceptions of home and homelessness. These journals have formed the basis of this paper. Findings In the paper, I give insights into the complex and evolving emotions I experienced throughout my home ethnography. In the early stages of my research, I explore the romanticism I experienced as I desperately tried to reconnect with my home. I then reflect on the ambivalent emotions I developed towards Northern Ireland as I spent more time there, simultaneously experiencing feelings of frustration and sometimes fear intertwined with a strong desire to fit in and belong there. Finally, I came to experience the bittersweet emotion, nostalgia, realising that one can never truly go home again because of the irreversibility of time. Originality/value By sharing my story, I aim to -contribute to the literature on home ethnography by providing new insights into the complex and evolving range of emotions encountered throughout the different stages of home ethnography. Additionally, I aim to contribute to the problematization of Alvesson’s (2009) definition of home ethnography by exploring the insider/outsider dichotomy for a returning ethnographer positioned within a deeply sectarian and segregated society. Finally, I provide insights into the long-term emotional impact of forced displacement due to the Northern Ireland conflict.