What Are "Reverse Diasporas" and How Are We to Understand Them
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4736147 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Christin He, Christin Hess (Aston University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 288-315 |
| Publication date | 2014-06-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Diaspora A Journal of Transnational Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1044-2057 • E-ISSN: 1911-1568 |
| Publisher | University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.3138/diaspora.17.3.288 |
| OpenAlex | W281756545, W4233534010 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
| References cited | 21 |
This article presents empirical evidence from two contemporary diasporas to support the thesis that formal return to the homeland does not necessarily "unmake" diasporas, as some scholars have previously suggested. I argue that, instead, so-called reverse diaspora formation processes take place, with important repercussions for the acculturation of co-ethnic immigrants in their nominal "homelands." This article focuses on this latter issue, primarily on processes of identity formation and notions of belonging and home, which are particularly meaningful in the context of this diasporic "homecoming." It draws on the structured comparison of the ethnic Greek and ethnic German diasporas from the former Soviet Union who moved to Greece and Germany after perestroika. Despite their rich and illuminating analogies and overlaps, these two diaspora groups have never been compared and contrasted before. After a brief historical contextualization, complicated processes of identity negotiation and belonging in the putative "historical homelands" are investigated comparatively, lending credence to the idea that "reverse" German and Greek diasporas have developed within (and often in conflict with) contemporary Greek and German societies. The fact that they occur simultaneously in both countries tends to suggest that the concept of reverse diaspora is an important one that needs closer attention from scholars in the future. The article concludes by outlining how we may conceptualize a reverse diaspora, based on existing definitions of diaspora. My research materials consist of in-depth qualitative data collected over the course of six years by means of eighty-one semi-structured interviews in Russian, German, and Greek with migrants and experts in Greece and Germany, embedded in ethno-graphic research and supplemented by statistical data
Aesthetics · Context (archaeology · Diaspora · Ethnic group · German · Homecoming · Homeland · Identity (music · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Transnationalism · Anthropology · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Gender Studies · History · Law · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Migration, Refugees, and Integration
Return Migration of the Greeks from the Former Soviet Union. Reflections on the Diasporic Logics of Exclusion and Belonging
Moroccan Torah Scrolls
Reverse Diaspora Tourism as a New Concept in Tourism
La mémoire en retour. Voyages au Viêt Nam des jeunes générations de la diaspora vietnamienne
Trends and patterns of post-communist migration from Russia to New Zealand since the 1990s
Germans Abroad? Danube Swabians and the Plurality of Diasporic Possibilities
Property investment and the making of the ambivalent elective Polish diaspora in Israel
La migration de retour des Grecs d'ex-Union soviétique en Grèce. Réflexions sur les logiques diasporiques d'exclusion et d'appartenance
Black Diasporic Subjectivity and Lacanian Lack of Home
Coming Home?
The Balkan Exchange of Minorities and Its Impact Upon Greece
New diasporas
Imagining the Balkans
The 1.5 Generation of Russian Immigrants in Israel
The Jewish Diaspora in a Comparative and Theoretical Perspective
The Contested Terrain of the Parallel Society
Ethnically Privileged Migrants in Their New Homeland
The Pontic Myth of Homeland
The Diaspora of the Greeks of the Pontos
Migrations of Ethnic Unmixing in the “New Europe”
Are They Fellow Countrymen or Not? The Migration of Ethnic Poles from Kazakhstan to Poland
Reform, “Rebirth” and Regret
Ethnic Greeks from the Former Soviet Union as “Privileged Return Migrants”
Ottoman Half-lives
Of Counter-Diaspora and Reverse Transnationalism
Transnationalism and Ethnonational Diasporism
Criss-Crossing Identities
Diasporas in Modern Societies
Making Sense of Home and Homeland
| Citations per year | 1.11 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2017 - 2025 (9) |
| Highly cited | No |