| Summary: | "How has mobility affected the way in which military brats grapple with the concepts of home/homeland and belonging? How does constant mobility during childhood affect the identity formation of these children and their eventual search for belonging and a place to call home? The second half of the twentieth century has been described as "an age of migration" with more populations on the move and "greater diversity in their place of origin." Different "conceptualisations [sic] of place" have altered the relationship between people and their environment. This is a major factor in the construction of identity (Dawson, 2011). Yet identity is fluid, never static, and always relational to the people and places in which one currently positions him or herself (Webb, 2003; Premdas 2011). In my thesis, I utilized my insider perspective through autoethnography to highlight the way military brats (British Reg. Att. Traveler) identify less with geographical points and more within themselves and relationships that foster a zone of comfort. Through the process of CHPS approved questionnaires, surveys, interviews, and web forums, I obtained valuable responses to hard questions. Ethnography is a very specific tool of interpretation, rebounding between two differently framed experiences into academic language. Autoethnography positions the reporter in the study as an indigenous ethnographer, one who claims membership in the cultural communities about which he or she is writing (Alexander, 2006). Through the lenses of sociology and anthropology, I have employed creative nonfiction, poetry, interviews, and online research to produce a document that acts as a mirror for more clearly understanding our position as a group with particular kinds of experiences (Igoe, 2012). For the military brat, home is located within spheres of security and comfort. Feelings of nonconnectedness, lack of roots, and not many extended family influences contribute to a constant questioning of where is home and how does one fit in to their location of supposed "home". With this in mind, belonging is something that is quite ambiguous to the military brat -- something they are in constant search of through adulthood."
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