Invitation: 18/03/2026 – UNU-MERIT Migration Seminar Series: Second generation’s family-driven ‘return’ migration and educational (dis-)integrations in the ancestral homeland

She specifically focuses on what happens when the second generation are required to ‘return’ as a result of their parents’ decision and find themselves in education systems and school environments with which they are unfamiliar. The webinar explores the interplay between return migration, educational integration and the second generation’s transnationalism, and uncovers the paradoxes that accompany relocation to the ancestral homeland. These include questions such as: to what extent is it ‘return’ when these individuals were not born and raised in the ancestral homeland? Can we speak of re-integration, or is it integration into educational systems, given that the second generation have no prior experience of the ancestral homeland’s structures? Are transnational ties and activities counterproductive to educational integration, or do they, in fact, help the second generation carve out their own niche for social upward mobility? Ultimately, the webinar aims to offer a critical discussion on the phenomena on second generation’s ‘return’ migration and how this relocation acts as a disruption, catalyser and enabler for second generation’s educational and later career paths. 

Nilay Kılınç is a social anthropologist whose interdisciplinary research engages with migration, mobility, diaspora and transnationalism. She is a KONE Foundation Grant Researcher at the Helsinki Institute of Urban and Regional Studies, University of Helsinki, where her project (2023-2026) examines creative migrants’ participation in democratic life within Finland’s socio-political landscape. Her recent book, A Place in the Homeland? Turkish-German Return Migration (Edinburgh University Press, 2025) is co-authored with Russell King. She is the director of Arkadaşloch – Nobody’s Problem (2022), a documentary telling the story of second-generation Turkish-German return migrants and deportees navigating life in the tourist city of Antalya. 

Webinar link: https://unu-merit-eu.zoom.us/j/5475937108?omn=87262833694.