Place Matters to Life After Return: Investigating Second‐Generation ‘Return’ to Different Locations in Turkey
2026-01-14
Turkish migration to Germany has been the largest‐scale labour migration in postwar Europe, yet scant attention has been paid to the return flow to Turkey, and even less to the second generation's ‘return’. This paper rectifies this oversight and focuses specifically on the role of place in shaping the post‐return experiences of the second generation relocating to their parents' homeland. Based on narrative interviews with 71 returnees, we find that different outcomes await those relocating to the megalopolis of Istanbul, the tourist hub of Antalya, and a range of provincial towns. Istanbul offers the widest spectrum of job opportunities, especially to those with higher‐level qualifications. Antalya is attractive to returnees with low qualifications who are easily able to find work in the tourist economy and enjoy an ‘alternative’ lifestyle. Those who move to the provincial locations in northern, central and eastern Turkey are following family migration networks but face more difficulties accessing the labour market and adapting to a more ‘traditional’ society. Return outcomes are influenced by the positionalities of returnees, where the interplay of gender, class and social location in specific places shapes diverse return experiences.