Crossing boundaries - ethnicizing employment - gendering labour: gender, ethnicity and social capital in return migration

The article aims to untangle the multiple dynamics that occur in the processes of 'adjustment' during 'return migration' in relation to gender, ethnicity, space, place and employment. Certain aspects of the return migratory project provide a portrait of everyday life experiences in spaces of employment while uncovering and accentuating spatial processes that are simultaneously gendered and ethnicized. Through an empirical insight into the ethnocultural, gender and social dynamics of the country of return the article examines the trajectory of second-generation Greek-American return migrants. The research utilized qualitative methods as a methodological means to highlight the issues under study. In particular, the in-depth ethnographic interviews and case studies endeavor to offer insight into the multi-layered issues of return migration and highlight the role that gender and ethnicity play in identification processes and how these are expressed in relation to social and cultural capital derived from particular social networks. These processes accentuate not only the construction of spatial identities but also the maintenance of place-dependent ethnonational expressions of belonging and exclusion in the case of second-generation Greek-Americans who have relocated to their ancestral homeland.