The moral politics of emigration: gendered figures of migration and the anxiety of diasporic return

The figure of the emigrant and the process of migratory return raise questions about the coherence of nations and generate anxiety about the disruption of social and cultural norms. We explore these tensions through a focus on filmic representations of emigrant return and the manner these articulate a gendered moral politics of migration. Our analysis focuses on the settler colonial context of New Zealand and two films, In My Fathers Den and Jinx Sister, that narrate the return of emigrants, their encounters with local populations and the cultural discrepancies that surface in return. Situated in relation to discourses that valorise emigrants as additions to globally connected nations, these films reveal anxiety as a resonant affect of diasporic return that emerges in behaviour, space and distance and the gendering of returnees. Rather than embracing the return of successful kin, the films reveal moral politics wherein differences must be erased to reinstate belonging in the nation and expectations for change are more pronounced for women than men. The paper demonstrates the importance of popular imaginations to understanding the meanings associated with migration, particularly examining how women and men are situated differently in relation to emigration and the social expectations of return.