Where Do I Belong? An autoethnographic musings on Cognitive (im)mobility

This autoethnographic article explores the feelings, thoughts, and experiences of an individual living abroad but cognitively imprisoned at his ancestral home. This article discusses the concept of cognitive migration as advanced by researchers and draws on it and the author's own experiences and feelings to introduce and explain the concept of cognitive immobility. It exemplifies the dialectical conflict between the aspirations of longing and the emotions of belonging for a place and the desire to remain distant from it. This article advocates the recognition of this cognitive experience of being cognitively trapped in an area while mobilised in-person elsewhere in migration studies. It provides a lens to view such migration experiences that have received inadequate attention and contributes to the growing body of knowledge regarding the cognitive migration processes and experiences of those contemplating or participating in human mobility.