Transatlantic Repatriation: Stigma Management of Second-Generation Italian- and Greek-American Women “Returning Home”

Based on 30 narrative-biographic interviews with second-generation Greek and Italian women who have migrated from the USA to their ancestral homelands of Greece and Italy, our paper 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. We investigate from the insider perspective the interplay between returnee-women’s rejection and acceptance of stigma and, particularly, their use of body politics in negotiating their new living spaces. Adopting the method of narrative biographic analysis, we present three detailed case studies of repatriate women – organized as composite biographies - to illuminate from different angles the process of stigma management and body politics. Our findings contribute to the elaboration of concepts ‘diasporic duress’ (‘transnational/diasporic patriarchy’) and ‘nativity voucher’; while also highlighting the dynamics in the reproduction of the diasporic patriarchy through repatriation to the ancestral homeland.