ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the ethnic return migration of the descendants of immigrants to their countries of ancestral origin. After examining the causes of this type of migration, the chapter outlines the ethnic and socioeconomic marginalisation that ethnic return migrants experience in the ancestral homeland despite their ethnic affinity with the host society, and how this causes them to reconsider the meanings of homeland. This is illustrated with an analysis of the return of Brazilian nikkeijin (Japanese descendants born and raised outside Japan) to their ethnic homeland. Although this migration was a response to economic pressures in both Brazil and Japan, and the Japanese Brazilians were initially welcomed by Japanese immigration policy-makers as ethnic brethren, they experience considerable ethnic and social alienation in Japan. This causes them to distance themselves from the ethnic homeland of Japan and strengthen their affiliation with their natal homeland of Brazil.
