The economic crisis which has affected the southern EU countries since 2008 set in motion new migration trends. In the case of Portugal, post‐crisis migrations have been in two main directions: northwards to more prosperous European countries, and southwards to former colonies in Africa, notably the oil‐producing state of Angola. Focusing on this latter migration, the paper is structured around two main questions. First, which migration‐theoretic frameworks can be deployed to explain this new North–South migration flow? Relevant concepts include the notion of Portugal as “semi‐periphery” within European and global migration systems; the role of post‐colonial theory, especially ideas about “coloniality” and “Lusotropicalism”; and the function of myth and racialised discourse in constructing this as a high‐skilled migration. The second question is more empirical and relates to the descriptive characteristics of the Portuguese migration to Angola and to the experiences of the migrants and their Angolan co‐workers and employers. Key here is a deconstruction of the notion of “skill” in Portuguese migrants’ experiences of employment in Angola. The empirical analysis is based on interviews with 45 migrants, their co‐workers and employers, and other key informants.

Reciprocal migration—which we define as the mutual exchange of origin and destination by two different migrating groups—is hardly acknowledged in the migration literature. In terms of the temporalities of migration, which are usually seen as sequences or transitions, reciprocal migrations are simultaneous. We analyse the reciprocal migrations between Angola and Portugal over the time-frame of the past 10–15 years. In-depth interviews were carried out with Portuguese migrants in Angola, most of whom moved there in the wake of the post-2008 financial crisis, and with Angolan third-level students and recent graduates in Portugal. A key operational concept in our analysis is the plastic notion of skill and its differential racialisation. Portuguese migrants in Angola are automatically regarded as ‘skilled’ even when they are not, whereas Angolan students and graduates in Portugal, when they seek work, are often viewed as ‘unskilled African migrant workers’. We thus distinguish and deconstruct the geographical binary between transnational origin and destination spaces and the social binary between ‘skilled white bodies’ and ‘unskilled black bodies’. These racialised embodied tropes draw on histories of Portuguese colonisation and the contested notion of ‘Lusotropicalism’, as well as the so-called Lusophone migration system involving complex transnational relations and two-way migration flows. Theoretically we frame this asymmetrical system of reciprocal migration within a modified version of core–periphery relations, as well as the coloniality of power and its enduring influence over the racialisation of skill, education, culture and language across the Portuguese–Angolan transnational space.

The economic crisis set in motion new migration trends in southern European countries. In Portugal, post-crisis migration has occurred in two main directions: northwards to more prosperous European countries and southwards to former Portuguese colonies in Africa—notably oil-producing Angola. Migration from the Global North to the Global South has received little attention in migration theories. In this study, the author argues that Portuguese migration to Angola should be understood not only as a result of the economic crisis, but also as a complex web of intersections in the context of Portuguese culture, Portugal’s linguistic heritage in Angola, family networks, discourses, myths and colonial power.

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