Return Migration in Romance Cultures

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Return migration is different from other forms of migration that have been studied much more extensively. It implies a predefined movement back to the geographic place of origin and a confrontation of the new cultural knowledge acquired abroad with the traditional knowledge still present in the local culture of origin. Hence, return migration turns out to be a transgression that, once accomplished, challenges the idea of successful reintegration of the returning subject, producing social mechanisms of simultaneous inclusion and exclusion that can intensify the potentially subversive effects of the returnee as a subject determined by intercultural experience. The contributors to this volume try to map the diversity of geographic phenotypes of remigration in Romance cultures, focusing especially on literature and films representing return movements in border contexts and those between Europe, America and Africa on a transcontinental level.