Cultural geographies of counter‐diasporic migration: perspectives from the study of second‐generation ‘returnees’ to Greece

Abstract 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. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.