Intergenerational Voices on Identity in Migration: Greek Islanders Speak
Intergenerational Voices on Identity in Migration: Greek Islanders Speak

Author(s): Melissa Afentoulis
Subject(s): Sociology, Oral history, Migration Studies, Identity of Collectives
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: Belonging; identity; migration; oral history; transnationalism;
Summary/Abstract: Limnos, like many parts of Greece, experienced successive and long periods of foreign domination, traumas of war and economic devastation. During the decades of 1950’s - 1970’s, compounded by social and economic instability, many Limnian islanders arrived as young immigrants to Australia looking to build a ‘normal’ life. In this paper, through oral history case studies, I examine how the first and subsequent generations of migrants engage with concepts of home and belonging and the role of ethno-regionalism in the reconstruction and redefinition of identity in the diaspora. Ethno-regional identity, of interest in this research, remains both durable and significant as it reforms on foreign soil though it has received comparatively little academic attention. Identity formation and reformation and the role of ‘return’ visits to the ancestral home emerge as transnational patterns that lead to a rediscovered identity shaping the next generation. This ‘history from below’ is not only about the potential loss of Australian migration historiography, but also the legacy of the oral narrative that links the past with the lives and memories of the present and future descendants galvanising this community’s continuity.

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