‘Diverse Mobilities’: Second-Generation Greek-Germans Engage with the Homeland as Children and as Adults

Abstract

This paper is about the children of Greek labour migrants in Germany. We focus on two life-stages of ‘return’ for this second generation: as young children brought to Greece on holidays or sent back for longer periods, and as young adults exercising an independent ‘return’ migration. We draw both on literature and on our own field interviews with 50 first- and second-generation Greek-Germans. We find the practise of sending young children back to Greece to have been surprisingly widespread yet little documented. Adult relocation to the parental homeland takes place for five reasons: (i) a ‘search for self’; (ii) attraction of the Greek way of life; (iii) the actualisation of the ‘family narrative of return’ by the second, rather than the first, generation; (iv) life-stage events such as going to university or marrying a Greek; (v) escape from a traumatic event or oppressive family situation. Yet the return often brings difficulties, disillusionment, identity reappraisal, and a re-evaluation of the German context.

Key Words:

• Greek-Germans
• second generation
• narratives of return
• home
• belonging
• hyphenated identities

Acknowledgement

Research for this paper was funded by the AHRC under their ‘Diasporas, Migration and Identities’ programme (grant AH/E508601X/1).

Notes

1. See for example Asis (2006), Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avila (1997), Parreñas (2005) and Pribilsky (2004). However, most of these cases refer to situations in which only one parent is a migrant; in the Greek case both parents are abroad.

2. Probably more significant is the ages at which the moves took place: 14, 25 and 34 in the case of Petros; 4, 10 and 29 in the case of Pelagia. Gender and education/professional background are also probably highly relevant in distinguishing these two cases, but there is no space to develop these analytical dimensions.

3. Whilst it is true that the bulk of our respondents were planning to stay in Greece rather than go back to Germany, we cannot discount the possibility that some might do so in the future.