Narrating lives in (e)motion: embodiment, belongingness and displacement in diasporic spaces of home and return

This paper presents insights into the diasporic feelings, embodied experiences and migrant encounters of home and belonging of first and second generation Greek-Danes. I consider how femininities and masculinities are practiced, performed, negotiated and narrated in the diaspora. More specifically, I examine spatialised performativities of gendered participation and exclusion in the diaspora in order to shed light on the kinds of hegemonic processes that take place in diasporic settings. This analysis is prompted by a qualitative and narrative turn in migration studies, and an emphasis on new mobility pathways to account for the embodied and emotional dimensions of migration and return migration. Interrogating migration narratives over the life course, I scrutinise the emotionally embodied context of belonging and exclusion and explore how emotions, desires and intimate attachments shape mobilities. Participants in the study on which this paper is based emphasised emotional journeys in migration/relocation decisions and experiences. The participants’ life stories serve as fragments of a diasporic life, reflecting how imaginative constructions of belonging are negotiated in everyday encounters in the home and host countries.