ABSTRACT
This chapter is a companion piece to a research project; it reflects on the lived experience of bi-rooted individuals –both the author's own and the experience of those the author has interviewed and conversed with. The bi-rooted individual will be confronted regularly with a simultaneous and flexible set of references which will contribute to the sense of being in constant flux; thus creating that unique position which sometimes includes both sets of references, or their being interchangeable. The bi-rooted individual’s experience of living is filtered through multiple points of reference, in multiple dimensions: cultural, personal, social, physical, emotional and spiritual. Being a bi-rooted migrant is one out of many possible scenarios that engender an existential crisis and creates the void that ignites a process of self-searching. The particular experience of the bi-rooted migrant highlights the urgency of self-rootedness and outlines the scope and nature of its role in one’s conduct in the face of challenge.
