ABSTRACT
Challenging the idea that transnational return mobilities are primarily engaged in by first-generation immigrants, this chapter reviews the literature on the second generation’s physical travel to their parents’ origin country and mobility routes after ‘return’ migration. Pre-‘return’ travels reveal a range of mobilities, from short visits to longer sojourns, sometimes leading to permanent relocation. To call the last of these moves ‘second-generation return migration’ risks creating an oxymoron since these individuals are moving to a country they have never lived in before. However, from their emic point of view such a move may be felt as a return to where they ‘belong’. Second-generation return mobilities can also take place at various ages, with correspondingly differentiated impacts on the individuals concerned. After ‘return’ migration, the second generation may engage in visits back to the countries they were born and/or raised in. In some cases, we see the second generation taking further mobility routes to other countries for employment. Whatever the age at which such visits or relocations take place, the results involve cultural encounters laden with emotion; happiness and joy mix with feelings of nostalgia, tension, and estrangement which compel them to negotiate self-identities vis-à-vis a sense of home-in-movement.
