Abstract
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.