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Edinburgh Studies on Diasporas and Transnationalism

A Place in the Homeland?Turkish-German Return Migration

By Nilay Kılınç and Russell King

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£24.99

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About this book

Explores the Turkish-German second generation's movement back to Turkey
  • The first in-depth study of the movement back to Turkey of the Turkish-German second generation
  • Deploys a sophisticated theoretical framework based on the concepts of counter-diaspora, translocational positionality, habitus, home, identity and belonging
  • Achieves a rich empirical analysis of the narratives of 71 participants interviewed via a multi-sited research design
  • Highlights the key role of place in the success or otherwise of the second generation’s homeland experiences
What happens when the second generation – the children of immigrants – moves to their parents’ homeland? A Place in the Homeland: Turkish-German Return Migration answers this question for the Turkish-German second-generation, sons and daughters of the Turkish guestworkers and political refugees who migrated to Germany in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Based on 71 in-depth narrative interviews, their life-stories of growing up in German industrial cities and then ‘returning’ to Turkey are traced through their experiences of childhood and socialisation, relocation to Turkey, earning a living, managing family and other relationships, adapting to an environment that many found challenging and developing new, hybrid identities in the ancestral homeland. The key finding is that ‘place matters’, and experiences are compared and contrasted between second-generation returnees in the megalopolis of Istanbul, the tourist city of Antalya and a range of provincial urban and rural environments in other regions of Turkey.

Reviews

This book highlights the primary factors driving the return migration of second-generation German-Turks to their ancestral homeland. Through in-depth interviews with returnees in Istanbul, Antalya and other places in Turkey, Nilay Kılınç and Russell King provide a nuanced perspective on this phenomenon. Its compelling narrative captures the reader's interest, presenting a comprehensive picture of the motivations behind the return of German-Turkish second-generation migrants. These motivations include economic incentives, opportunities for higher education, lifestyle changes, feelings of nostalgia and the desire for emancipation. The book combines rigorous research with engaging storytelling, making it not only informative but also a pleasure to read.
Table of contents

List of Figures and Tables
Preface and Acknowledgements

1. What is Second-generation ‘Return’ Migration?
2. Return to Turkey: The Importance of Place
3. The Turkish-German Second Generation: Family Migration Histories and Second-generation Lives in Germany
4. Why Return? An Exploration of Routes and Decision-making
5. Earning a Living: Transcultural Capital and Building a Career
6. Gender, Family and Marriage in Return Migration
7. Transnational Identities and Activities in Post-return Lives
8. The Future: At home in the Homeland?

References
Index

About the contributors

Nilay Kılınç

Nilay Kılınç is a social anthropologist and an ethnographic filmmaker with an interdisciplinary background and focus on migration, mobilities, diasporas and transnationalism. She holds a postdoctoral researcher position at the Helsinki Institute of Urban and Regional Studies, University of Helsinki. She is one of the two representatives of Finland in immigration and integration matters at the Nordic Migrant Expert Forum under the Nordic Council of Ministers. Her current research (2023-2026) is funded by KONE Foundation and explores the democratic participation of creative migrants in Finland. She has extensively researched the second-generation Turkish-German migrants’ return migration to Turkey and highly skilled migrants from Turkey in Europe, particularly in the Nordic region. She has published solo and co-authored articles in journals such as Ethnic and Racial Studies, Demographic Research, Nordic Journal of Migration Research and Global Networks and recently contributed to two edited book volumes; The Routledge International Handbook of Transnational Studies (2024, M. Fauser & X. Bada eds.); Handbook of Return Migration (2022, R. King & K. Kuschminder eds.).

Russell King

Russell King is Emeritus Professor of Geography at the University of Sussex and Visiting Professor in Migration Studies at Malmö University. He has been teaching, researching and publishing on migration for fifty years. At Sussex he was the founding director of the Sussex Centre for Migration Research and established the university’s MA and PhD programmes in Migration Studies. Supported by several research grants, he has coordinated research projects on return migration, international retirement migration, remittances and gender, international student migration, EU youth migration and the formation of scientific diasporas. He has published papers in most of the leading human geography and migration journals. His most recent books are: Anxieties of Migration and Integration in Turbulent Times (Springer, 2023, co-editor), Onward Migration and Multi-Sited Transnationalism (Springer, 2023, co-editor), Handbook of Return Migration (Edward Elgar, 2022, co-editor) and Young EU Migrants in London in the Transition to Brexit (Routledge, 2022, co-author).

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