New Zealanders returning from overseas: how their experiences of xenophobia could help us respond to superdiversity

Abstract

This article draws on qualitative interview data with 42 New Zealanders returning to New Zealand after living overseas, finding they feel more like a ‘migrant’ than someone coming ‘home’. This is in part because New Zealand people and institutions demonstrate an intolerance to difference, theorised here as a form of xenophobia that inhibits the economic, social and political integration of participants. However, the same experiences and ideas that lead many New Zealanders to frame returnees as an ‘out-group’ can be regarded as a national resource. The article concludes that we should embrace–not ignore or disparage–returnees' awareness of integration issues, transnational networks and cross-cultural experiences as we attempt to maintain social cohesion in an increasingly superdiverse world.