Jasna Čapo and Marina Blagaić held a lecture at the 12th Anatomy of Islands Conference on the island of Hvar, the town of Jelsa, September 26-28 2024.
Return and Immigration to Islands: Between Performativity and Activism
Some ten years ago, transnational optics redefined the concept of return as a fluid, multidirectional
and reversible movement between the social space of the country of origin
and the country of immigration (or a third country). It also expanded it with the idea of
virtual, short-term and temporary return – applied to both migration and post-migration
(so-called second and later) generations. Since then, return and return migration have
become a fertile area of research in migration studies, especially in sociology and cultural
anthropology. Relying on the concepts of social remittances (P. Levitt, P. Boccagni), reverse transnationalism (R. King) and transnational cultural capital (T. Reynolds), we
investigate the narratives, ideas and practices of returnees and immigrants. By comparing
our own multi-year ethnographic insights about returnee and settler migrations on several
Croatian islands (Šolta, Korčula, Lastovo, Hvar, Susak, Unije) as well as elsewhere in
Croatia (Zagreb, continental Dalmatia), we develop a typology of returnees and settlers’
agency in the new environments. It derives from the cultural and social capital of returnees/
immigrants and their motives for return/immigration (eg. retirement, lifestyle migration
and search for personal freedom, intimate relationship with domiciled persons,
inheritance of family returnee narrative, recognition of economic opportunities, etc.).
Between the two extremes – the performative act of belonging and innovative activities
aimed at the development of the economy and society – one can observe a number
of other ways of returnees’/immigrants’ agency that clearly point to their aspiration for
social engagement, especially visible in smaller island areas.