This paper introduces the notion of ‘counter-diasporic migration’ as the process whereby the second generation relocates to the ancestral homeland – the birthplace of their parents. We review and critically analyse the three key literatures that frame this process – on the second generation, on diasporas and on return migration – and find that all of them say very little about the transnational links and return movements of this migrant generation. In the final part of the paper we examine issues of home, identity, place and belonging as constitutive elements of the cultural geography of second-generation return.
Although the paper is essentially a review and (re)conceptualisation, throughout the account we weave an empirical thread relating to recent research carried out by the authors on the return of second-generation Greek-Americans and Greek-Germans to their ancestral home in Greece.
Read the presentation (PPT) and the whole paper (pdf).