Abstract

The project Views from Expatria: Photographing Place and the Self in Transience investigates the intersection between photography, expatriation, and an expanded context of human migrations. Expatriates, transient skilled workers, within today’s ease of mobility for work can easily lose sight of “home.” Recurrent transits and travels away from home are associated with the everyday experience of expatriates. Although there are many benefits associated with working abroad, these do not come without challenges for the expatriated individual. My creative work Photographing Place and Self in transience and this article reveal the social, political, and psychological complexities associated with the global phenomenon of expatriation. Using place photography and autoethnography away from practices and concepts of forced migration and refugee displacement, the work argues that living and working outside one’s home country has a profound impact on the identity of the expatriate individual. The article reassesses the ideologies of place representation, mobility, and identity, highlighting their contents and disconnects and contributes to current discourses about expatriation and the transient self.