Transatlantic repatriation: Stigma management of second-generation Italian and Greek American women ‘returning home’

Abstract

Based on 30 narrative-biographic interviews with second-generation Greek and Italian women who have migrated from the United States to their ‘ancestral homelands’ of Greece and Italy, our article explores nuances of their stigma management by focusing on the interaction between their pre-repatriation past and post-repatriation present and the spaces of inclusion and exclusion. Adopting the method of narrative-biographic analysis, we present three detailed case studies of repatriated women – organized as composite biographies – to illuminate from different angles the process of stigma management and the phenomenon of stigma mobility. Highlighting the dynamics of the reproduction of the diasporic patriarchy through repatriation to the ‘ancestral homeland’, we introduce and elaborate on the concept ‘nativity voucher’ in reference to ethno-cultural resources that repatriated people use to facilitate their spaces of inclusion.