Cultural geographies of counter-diasporic migration: perspectives from the study of second-generation 'returnees' to Greece

This paper aims to contribute to ongoing theorisation of diasporas by a specific focus on 'second-generation return' , the migration of host-country-born second-generation persons to the birth-country of their parents. We nominate the term 'counter-diasporic migration' to describe this particular migration chronotope. Although the ideology of 'return to the homeland' is inscribed into most definitions of diaspora, relatively few studies have been made of `counter-diaspora', where the 'scattering' is reversed. Adopting a cultural-geographical perspective, the paper explores some of the core elements that are constitutive of second-generation relocation to the ancestral homeland: specifically the migrants' complex and ambiguous views of 'home', 'place', 'belonging' and 'identity'; or, from the emic perspective of the migrants, the 'who I am' in the 'where I am'. The paper draws on some results from ongoing research by the authors into the second-generation return of Greek-Americans and Greek-Germans to Greece, as well as on other studies of counter-diaspora around the world.