The Concept of "Homeland"

From Barrington, Herron, and Silver: The Motherland is Calling: Views of Homeland among Russians in the Near Abroad:

"While national identity may or may not be based on ethnicity, it always contains a territorial component. An ethnic group becomes 'national' when it recognizes a particular territory as one that has a right to control politically. The development of a sense of homeland an an emotional attachment to that homeland coincides with the development of national self-consciousness. Scholars have asserted that 'for a nation to exist, it must have some place that it can claim its own' and 'nations cannot be conceived without a specific territory or homeland.' Thus, to understand a particular group's idea of homeland one must understand its political and social conduct and its relations with a national 'other.'

"An individual or group can have several possible homelands. The first is an external homeland, in which case a minority does not consider any part of its state of residence to be its homeland but instead views some region or state outside its country of residence as the group's true homeland... Such a situation would not ordinarily fuel secessionist claims, though it could lead the government of the external homeland to intervene on behalf of the minority group. If there is a legitimate basis for claims of discrimination, the external homeland may put diplomatic, economic, or military pressure on the minority's state of residence to protect the minority from discrimination.

"The second possible homeland is internal - a part of the state of residence. This perception of homeland is generally associated with a state that contains a sizable and concentrated ethnic minority. The minority considers a region to be its national homeland and desires political control over that territory. Such situations fuel secessionist drives and are at the heart of many ethnic conflicts around the world because what is seen as a homeland by the minority is often the perceived homeland of the majority group. This situation of overlapping homelands is common in the former Soviet Union, especially where regions within the existing successor states are named for a particular ethnic minority (for example, Chechnya within Russia and Abkhazia within Georgia).

"The third type of homeland is best called the mixed (internal-external) homeland. In this situation, members of a minority in one state see the homeland as comprising both a part of the state of residence and an external region or state. Such views of homeland can result in irredentism, in which members of an ethnic minority support the secession of a region of their state of residence and its joining with a neighboring state. An oft-mentioned example is Kazakhstan, where Russians consider both the northern part of the country and Russia as their homeland. In such situations, nationalist claims take the form of a desire to break part of the state of residence away and to join with the rest of the homeland group.

"The fourth homeland option is also internal but with different implication from those of the internal variant discussed above. Members of an ethnic minority may see their entire state of residence as their homeland. This possibility is rarely discussed in works on the intersection of minorities, identity, and territory. Since it is assumed that to be a nation requires a homeland different from that which another nation can claim, it follows that by definition 'national minorities' would not consider their state of current residence to be their homeland. Whereas national minorities (as the term is understood by scholars of nationalism) may not accept their state of residence as their homeland, ethnic minorities may."

Barrington, Lowell W., Erik S. Herron, and Brian D. Silver. "The Motherland is Calling: Views of Homeland among Russians in the Near Abroad." World Politics 55 (January 2003), 290-313.