Gendering Counter-Diasporic Migration: : Second-Generation Greek-Americans and Greek-Germans Narrate their ‘Homecoming’ to Greece

Guided by recent epistemological shifts in the field of migration studies—notably the use of life-narratives, the ‘emotional turn’ and the recognition of the importance of gendered perspectives—this paper considers how masculinities and femininities are practised, performed, negotiated and narrated amongst two of the main Greek diasporic populations. Our main focus is on second-generation Greek-Americans and Greek-Germans who have relocated to Greece—a group for whom notions of ‘home’, ‘return’ and ‘belonging’ are particularly complex and contested, involving a series of gendered practical and emotional changes and compromises at different stages of their lives. The paper’s main empirical base consists of 60 in-depth life narratives, 30 each with second-generation ‘returnees’ from the United States and from Germany, interviewed in Athens, Thessaloniki and other locations in Greece. Additional interview material comes from smaller numbers of first-generation Greek emigrants in New York and Berlin, and some focus-group discussions. Employing a bifocal gender and generational lens, we explore lived migration experiences at three diasporic moments: growing up within the Greek diasporic setting in the United States and Germany; motivations for the counter-diasporic return; and experiences in the ‘homeland’ of Greece. We document a range of feelings, from nostalgia, homing and belonging to disillusionment, displacement and exclusion, each of which has a gendered expression and differentiation.