Perspectives on Global Diasporas: Ethnic Return Migration to the Ancestral Homeland

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue of Genealogy invites contributions to the topic “Perspectives on Global Diasporas: Ethnic Return Migration to the Ancestral Homeland”. Diasporas are not simply constituted by the dispersal of peoples from their homeland to various countries around the world but also by their eventual return to their place of ethnic origin. This includes not simply the return of first-generation diasporic migrants to their home country but the “ethnic return migration” of their descendants to their country of ancestral origin as migrant workers, professionals, businesspeople, or students.

Unlike first-generation diasporic migrants who return to their country of birth, ethnic return migrants were born and/or raised abroad and are therefore “returning” to an ethnic homeland that is essentially a foreign country for them. Despite their ethnic affinity to their country of ancestral origin and its “co-ethnic” host populace, they can be ethnically and socioeconomically marginalized and face discrimination as immigrant minorities. As a result, ethnic return migrants are often forced to reconsider their ethnic identities, sense of national belonging, and even notions of homeland, which in turn can impact their social mobility and subsequent migration patterns. Nonetheless, the experience of diasporic return can vary widely, depending on the migrants’ nationality/origin country, heritage language and cultural competence, generational status, gender, and socioeconomic status in the homeland.

This Special Issue invites papers about a range of issues related to ethnic return migrants in diasporic context, with an emphasis on qualitative or ethnographic research. We welcome both papers that are single case studies, as well as comparisons of different groups of ethnic return migrants. Paper topics can include (but do not have to be limited to) the following:

• The various causes of diasporic return, which can involve a confluence of economic, ethnic, social, and transnational factors, as well as the diasporic engagement policies of ethnic homelands.
• The cultural and social experiences of ethnic return migrants in their ancestral homeland and their level of ethnic and socioeconomic marginalization or acceptance/integration.
• The nature of discrimination against ethnic return migrants from the host population, including possible cultural racism and co-ethnic racism.
• The impact of diasporic return on the ethnic identities, sense of national belonging, and conceptions of homeland of ethnic return migrants.
• Differences among ethnic return migrants from various countries in the diaspora (especially between those from the Global North versus the Global South) and their social interaction/relationships (or lack thereof) in the ethnic homeland.
• Generational differences between ethnic return migrants, especially between those who are 1.5/second generation in their countries of origin versus those who are later generation.
• The socioeconomic mobility (or lack thereof) of ethnic return migrants in the homeland over time.
• Transnational connections that ethnic return migrants develop or maintain with their country of origin.
• The subsequent migration patterns of ethnic return migrants (remaining in the ancestral homeland, returning to their country of origin, repeat/circular migration, migration to third countries).
• The impact of ethnic return migrants on the ethnonational identities and attitudes of the co-ethnic host population.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400–600 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the guest editor ([email protected]) or to the Genealogy editorial office ([email protected]). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

Prof. Dr. Takeyuki Tsuda
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Genealogy is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• diasporas
• ethnic return migration
• unskilled and skilled migration
• homeland
• ethnic and national identity
• discrimination and racism
• generation
• socioeconomic mobility
• transnationalism