ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the interplay between memory, ‘homecomings’ and migrant associations in the context of a diaspora with multi-layered affiliations to more than one ‘place of origin’. It focuses on the Macanese diaspora gatherings in Macau, known as Encontro(s) and Youth Encontro(s); and the strong involvement of migrant associations, mostly known as Casas de Macau, in organizing these gatherings and perpetuating remembrances of and connections to ‘home’. Notwithstanding the 1999 Handover to China and the deep socio-political changes, Macau has continued to be a mediating space for the manifold attachments that bring the dispersed Macanese communities together. Personal and shared identity perceptions before, within and after the Encontros are influenced by the Casas’ role in negotiating belongings and shaping the understanding and remembrance of one’s roots, irrespective of whether Macau is one’s place of origin. Essentially, these ‘homecomings’ are about the journey of the diaspora to Macau, a place constructed as ‘home’, the materialization and (re)working of nostalgia and the assertion of Macanese identity and its social networks.
