20 research outputs found
'Diverse mobilities': second-generation Greek-Germans engage with the homeland as children and as adults
This paper is about the children of Greek labour migrants in Germany. We focus on two life-stages of âreturnâ 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 âreturnâ 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 âsearch for selfâ; (ii) attraction of the Greek way of life; (iii) the actualisation of the âfamily narrative of returnâ 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
U.S. Farm Policy as Fraught Populism: Tracing the Scalar Tensions of Nationalist Agricultural Governance
Migrants encounter migrants in the city: the changing context of "home" for second-generation Greek-American return migration
This article looks at the 'return' migration of second-generation Greek Americans to their parents' homeland, Greece. It is based on interviews with, and written accounts supplied by, 40 participants in the research, all now living in the Athens region. The article addresses two main sets of questions. First, why do they relocate to Greece, what are they looking for, and how do they cope with difficulties and disappointments? Second, and more specifically, how do they react to the fact that Greece is no longer a homogenous hellenistic society, but has become in recent years a "de facto" multicultural one due to the presence of hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers and their families? Three hypotheses are proposed for this inter-migrant encounter: returnees, shocked by the 'new immigration', view it negatively as upsetting the 'pure Greek' homeland they had hoped to find; returnees are more sympathetic because of their own families' history as immigrants in multicultural America; and returnees differentiate themselves as 'good' migrants from Greece's immigrants who are constructed as 'bad' migrants. Evidence from the migrants' testimonies is found to support all three hypotheses; however, there is more support for the second one. In addition, a fourth outcome was voiced: that of discrimination against Greek Americans who are made to feel, in certain circumstances, outsiders by the 'true' Greeks. Suggestions are made for further comparative research. Copyright (c) 2006 The Author. Journal Compilation (c) 2006 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd..