“The Homecomer,” by Alfred Schuetz, examines the varying point of views of the man left behind and the man who is absent from his homeland. Schuetz identifies obstacles individuals and society face when an individual attempts to reintegrate into a community they once belonged to, which has since built various systems of pseudo-types that can never be eliminated entirely. Schuetz uses the example of the United States veteran returning from war to highlight the differences between each the homecomer, the stranger, and the community.
Through contrasting the stranger and the homecomer, Schuetz discerns hat in order to comprehend the homecomer and his experiences, the pseudo-type of the homecomer must be replaced by his unique-individual experiences instead of propaganda used to promote and characterize the pseudo- experience. According to Schuetz, the homecomer is seen as an unaccustomed face, different from that of a stranger. This key concept is established at the beginning of the article to differentiate between homecomer and stranger.
But how can one distinguish between the two? Schuetz argues that the stranger is unfamiliar with everything, in an unfamiliar situation here he is considered an outsider but wishes to become an insider. Whereas the homecomer anticipates his return to his homeland, and believes previous knowledge will help him grasp his bearings upon his return. The homecomer returns to an old situation, believing they remain an insider within the in-group however this is not the case.
Here, Schuetz contends that when one is gone for a period of time they too transform into a stranger to their homeland upon returning because their memories are reshaped by new experiences, and their homeland has changed in their absence. This unavoidable change results in the homecomer returning to a place that is foreign to them even though everything may appear familiar. Consequently, due to altered memories and perceptions of former experiences the homecomer is no longer a member of the in-group and is akin to the ‘stranger Schuetz defines.
Existence for the person who never leaves their homeland is characterized as stable and routine. The in-group does not look for new solutions to old problems because there is no need to establish or redefine a solution that has been used routinely and many times over. Schuetz recognizes the home as a way of controlling the in-group belonging to it. Since home consists of a routine and organized pattern, goals and the means to achieve these goals through mastering daily life by following the pattern of the in-group, is a ramification. According to Schuetz, this results in conformity within the in-group.
This conformity is problematic to the man who has left home because upon his return, if he so wishes to return, he will no longer fit in with the in-group and the community’s stable routines. The in-group views the newcomer in terms of the propaganda that the ommunity in which they live has allowed them to see. Their perception of the stranger or the homecomer is shaped by depictions the community has manufactured for them. This means that when the homecomer returns there is no connection between the image disseminated within the in- group and the authentic individual experience of the homecomer.
This is evident in the following quotation, “… the homecomer is not the same man who left. He is neither the same for himself nor for those who await his return” (Schuetz 375). Through Schuetz’s depictions one can assume a isconnection between the homecomer and the in-group because of these pseudo-types that have been created. Following the distinction of the homecomer and the stranger, Schuetz elucidates the implications for those who leave the homeland and eventually wish to or do return.
For the man who has left home Schuetz argues that home is no longer immediately accessible for them and all that they have left are the preservation of their memories of what home meant to them until they moved. These memories from their homeland are altered by experiences of new events, therefore old emories cannot revert back to the interpretation they once were and will now have a new meaning to them. This is clarified by Schuetz in the following quotation “.. What belongs to the past can never be reinstated in another present exactly as it was.
The homeland and the homecomer are both privy to the unfamiliar face that has returned, such as that of a returning war veteran. Schuetz concludes that in order for a homecomer to be fully accepted upon their return, the homeland must eliminate all pseudo-experiences and pseudo- typifications that were built in the homecomer’s absence. The homecomer, or returning war veteran, must be able to share their own individual experiences with a community who will openly listen and understand what they went through.
However, this cannot be achieved due to the constant dissemination of propaganda designed to build morale on the home front. Schuetz recognizes that the homecomer is not the same man who left and the home is not the same home the homecomer yearned for. It is important to acknowledge why Schuetz uses the US war veteran as a concrete example of a homecomer. The US war veteran leaves his homeland to fight or his country and in his absence his homeland continues to change. Everyone within his homeland who belongs to the in- group recognizes this change, however he is not there to witness it.
Society changes as a whole and therefore the people within it change also, daily life continues on for them even with a member of their in-group, the veteran, gone. While away at war the veteran is exposed to horrors and experiences much different than that of his homeland ultimately resulting in his viewpoints, attitudes, and inner-self transforming. Whereas back n his homeland, the individuals there are learning about his experience through bogus portrayals created by the community to ensure morale on the home front.
When the veteran returns to his homeland he is considered a homecomer. However, the people he is greeted by are different, his homeland is different, and no one within the homeland understands his individual experiences causing him to feel like a stranger. He feels as though he is unappreciated by the people at home, his heroism and sacrifice go unnoticed. This is the same for the members of the in-group who welcome home the veteran and recognize that e has changed and is no longer similar to them; war has changed him while the routine system of the homeland has changed them.
Mutual re-establishment must take place to re- establish we-relations between the in-group and the veteran, however according to Schuetz the biggest obstacle for this re- establishment is the variance between what the homecomer’s ascribed importance and uniqueness to their own experience is and the pseudo-typification the people at home assign to these experiences pseudo-relevance. homecoming to be successful according to Schuetz social elations need to be transformed into recurring ones.
The homecomer is no longer within the homeland experiences strangers as unaccustomed faces, but is not an unaccustomed face himself. The irony of Alfred Schuetz’s article is that at the beginning of the article homecomer is compared to the stranger and a distinction is established. However by the end of the article the homecomer has morphed into the stranger – returning to a foreign land that will not be accepted until the ‘thick air’ about him has dissipated and he is accepted back into the in-group and re-establishes lost we-relations.
