Deciphering diaspora – translating transnationalism: Family dynamics, identity constructions and the legacy of ‘home’ in second-generation Greek-American return migration

Abstract

The article explores through the phenomenon of ‘return migration’ in Greece the settlement and identification processes of a second-generation Greek-American ‘returning migrant’, as a heuristic narrative to examine the meanings attached to the experience of return migration as they relate to and impact on the returnee's sense of self (ethnic) and sense of place (national). The concepts of ‘home’ and ‘belonging’ are central in the return migratory project which entails (re)location and (dis)placement as well as adjustment and alienation. Furthermore, the article considers the multiple interactions (social, cultural, political) between the place of origin and the place of destination, the role that family plays in migrant lifeworlds as well as the gendered and ethnic expressions of migrant identification.

Keywords:

• Greek-Americans
• return migration
• family
• gender
• identity
• belonging

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this article was presented at the “face to face connecting distance + proximity”, 8^th Biennial European Association of Social Anthropologists Conference (EASA), University of Vienna, 8–12 September, 2004. I am particularly grateful to the Convenors of the Social Capital, Migration and Transnational Families workshop, Dr. Venetia Evergeti and Dr. Elisabetta Zontini for inviting me to participate and to EASA for providing the funding to attend. I am indebted to my colleagues at the Academy for Migration Studies (AMID) at the University of Aalborg where I was Visiting Assistant Professor at the time for their warm welcome and support. The list of colleagues who generously expressed their comments and interest in my work is too long to mention on this occasion but that does not diminish in any sense my debt to all. At the EASA conference workshop presentation I would like to thank the discussant Dr. Kanwal Mand and the audience for their stimulating and constructive observations. I am also grateful for the subsequent feedback and insightful commentary I received from Dr. Venetia Evergeti and the two anonymous referees which I have tried to respond to and incorporate in the revised version. All substantial suggestions made have greatly strengthened the argument and improved the content of the final version, however, I remain solely responsible for any shortcomings. My deepest and most genuine gratitude is extended to Lysistrate for her generosity of time, space and spirit in personal and virtual narrations of her life story, thoughts, feelings and reflections.

Notes

1. This article draws on the theoretical framework of a larger study that took place between 2001 and 2003 (Christou 2006a) but the narrative content and analysis is strictly based on subsequent fieldwork conducted in 2004 and reflects on the themes and issues that emerged during the research.

2. For a detailed justification of why the terminology “return migration” is used for second-generation Greek-Americans born and raised in the United States to Greek or Greek-American parents and the problematic aspects of several concepts employed in the discussion of “ancestral homeland” ethnic relocation, refer to Christou 2006a.

3. Multiple changes have occurred in the last decade that would be impossible to present in detail on this occasion. In the context of the discussion, the most visible ones are related to a transformation of Greece to an immigrant receiving country with a newly formed multicultural persona [“A Greece which is changing: saying good-bye to the 20th century”, Athens: To Vima, 2000, (in Greek)].

4. It is not my intention here to enter a theoretical debate on transnationalism and diasporas, not only for writing space limitations but primarily because I have recently extensively discussed the spatial reconceptualization of networks and interactions, that is, elsewhere, I have discussed social capital and the second-generation (Christou 2006b) as well as transnationalism and the second-generation (Christou 2006c) beyond a collaborative condition to the production of power dynamics, conflicts and (re)actions. As the title indicates, the narrative content is aimed at ‘translating’ transnationalism and the role that family plays in the gendered and ethnic meanings that second-generation Greek-American returnees confer to their subjective notions of home and belonging in the ancestral homeland.

5. Extracts in italic typeface are taken from the collection of written narratives while the ones in regular typeface are taken from personal interviews and discussions with the participant.

6. The literature is indeed painstakingly vast on these notions and there exists a multitude of articles and volumes that one ought to refer to when trying to cope with the complexity of the concepts. It is beyond the scope and purpose of this article to critically address this. However, two very recent efforts worth mentioning on this occasion, that, in my opinion, have been guided by a meticulous and assiduous endeavour to critically challenge those concepts, can be found at: Families & Social Capital ESRC Research Group, South Bank University, www.sbu.ac.uk/families (for a list of papers) and, Mihaylova, D. (2004) “Social Capital in Central and Eastern Europe: a critical assessment and literature review”, Center for Policy Studies, Central European University, www.ceu.hu/cps.