sozialpolitik.ch

Digital Communication Practices around the Experience of Resettlement from Kakuma Refugee Camp to Germany

Claudia Böhme — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Kakuma refugee camp, one of the biggest refugee camps in the world, lies very marginalized in Northwestern Kenya. People living there are restricted in mobility,access to resources and work. While Kakuma has become a vivid city and home, the majority of people just want to get out. Resettlement means the chance to start a new life in places like the USA, Canada or Europe, it is everybody’s dream. With the use social media and access to wider transnational networks and information, the perception of resettlement has undergone major transformations. Based on conversations with people resettled, field work and online ethnography, I want to analyse how the journey of resettlement is personally experienced vis a vis its presentation on social media. How resettlement is perceived through pictures and texts and what is shown and what is hidden of the journey to a new life abroad.

Experimentation and Extraction in Reintegration Governance: the case of Kosovo

Ruth Vollmer, Zeynep Sahin-Mencutek — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This article focuses on the governance of reintegration in Kosovo, where return and reintegration has been an issue since 1999. Drawing on qualitative empirical and desk research, we argue that Kosovo's reintegration governance landscape is a site of experimentation and extraction in relation to the policy objectives of destination countries prioritizing returns. Extraction occurs as the management of returnee reintegration becomes an opportunity for revenue generation for multiple state and non-state as well as transnational and local actors. Experimentation concerns innovations and testing mainly initiated by donors and international actors, then appropriated by local partners. The paper contributes to the understanding of specific mechanisms of reintegration governance, modes of practice and power relations between multiple actors operating at different scales.

Return Policies and Everyday Resistance: An Exploration of Nigerian Migrants’ Experiences in Austria

Simona Schreier — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This article delves into the nuances of resistance among Nigerian migrants in Austria, situated within the larger framework of European migration. Against the backdrop of the stringent migration regulations implemented in Austria during the 2015 long summer of migration and amplified during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study aims to provide a deeper exploration of the political sociology of return. Drawing on semi-structured interviews conducted with 18 Nigerian migrants, I examine the perspectives of migrants and their interpretations of voluntary and forced return policies and implementation, shedding light on their motivations, strategies, and decision-making processes. Additionally, the paper incorporates 15 interviews with government officials, non-governmental organisations, and activists to explore the implementation of return policy. Using the framework of everyday resistance by Johansson and Vinthagen (2019), this study uncovers the nuanced ways in which Nigerian migrants in Austria navigate the pressures of returning to their home countries. This analysis is especially significant because of Nigeria’s prominence as a major origin country for migrants in Europe. It provides valuable insights into the broader European migration context and contributes to a better understanding of resistance within return migration processes. These acts manifest in various forms in everyday life, challenging the execution of asylum and return policies in specific physical locations, such as workplaces, cities, and streets, highlighting the complex subtleties of resistance in the context of return migration management.

Income prospect trajectories after state-induced return from Germany to the Gambia: Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration as ‘slow deportation’

Judith Altrogge — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Considering the harsh humanitarian and financial costs of deportation, Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration (AVRR) is regarded as a better alternative to return migrants to their countries of origin. This analysis assesses the differences in income prospect development after deportation and AVRR and the reintegration assistance they encompass. In a longitudinal comparative design, it follows the experiences of 20 migrants who (were) returned to the Gambia between 2018 and 2020. It finds that both return types generate overly challenging economic trajectories that become difficult to distinguish over time. However, AVRR and deportation create different temporal tendencies. While AVRR often entails a realization process about the inadequacy of post-return hopes, deportees partly start to reorient themselves economically and socially against the backdrop of inhumane deportation practice and following despair. Considering the overall low chances of establishing positive income prospects after any state-induced return, AVRR resembles a ‘slow deportation’.

Escaping the ‘diaspora trap’: A narrative of struggle and resilience by an unskilled Zimbabwean migrant in South Africa.

Divane Nzima, Khangelani Moyo — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Return migration and reintegration have become the latest points of discussion in the global migration studies literature. These discussions often focus on state level decision making and policy formulation without extended engagement with migrants themselves or paying attention to the everyday individual decisions made by “would-be” returnees. In this paper, we engage the notion of return migration in the African context, arguing that the return of migrants to their countries of origin is often indexed against a successful migration journey or a failed one. Such understanding takes account of structural factors outside the control of the individual migrant such as the material conditions in the origin and host countries as well as the expectations of their families and communities. We use data from a life history account of a male Zimbabwean gardener who typifies the material and cognitive struggles of migration and return. We pay attention to his lived experiences as he struggles to navigate expectations, joblessness, exploitation, and precarious work. We also discuss his resilience and determination to meet his migration goals as he meticulously plans his return to Zimbabwe where he intends to start a farming project. Through studying the experiences of this Zimbabwean migrant, we explore the agency with which he manages to circumvent structural constraints and diaspora entrapment which has been the case for many Zimbabweans in South Africa. While existing evidence indicates that skilled migrants are more prone to fall into the ‘diaspora trap’, this study gives insight into the experiences of unskilled migrants and the tools at their disposal to escape the ‘diaspora trap

Retour et réintégration des migrants: le rôle de la famille et de la communauté

Doudou D. Gueye, Amadou Mballo — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Cet article s’intéresse à la problématique globale du retour et de la réintégration des migrants en Afrique de l’ouest particulièrement au Sénégal, en Gambie et en Guinée Conakry. Plus spécifiquement, à partir d’une méthode qualitative, il sera question d’aborder les rôles joués par les instances familiales et communautaires dans le processus de la réintégration des migrants de retour. En effet, beaucoup de recherches portant sur la migration ont été orientées vers les politiques migratoires comme les départs, le rapatriement, les retours volontaires, l’accompagnement, le suivi, et la réintégration des migrants par les organisations gouvernementales et non gouvernementales. Mais, il est constaté que les rôles supposés joués par les instances familiales et communautaires sont rarement évoqués dans le retour et la réintégration des migrants. Pourtant, l’on sait que sous son apparence individuelle, les familles soutiennent largement les départs migratoires et en conséquence leur implication dans le retour nous apparaît comme l’élément majeur de la réintégration.

‘Why did you return?’: North-South return migration and family ties in the case of Iran

Sara Hormozinejad — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This article offers insight into the motivations behind voluntary North-South return migration by examining returnees’ own understanding and perception of return. Adopting a bottom-up approach and drawing on semi-structured in-depth interviews with eleven Iranian returnees, this study asks: How do return migrants perceive and articulate what motivated and facilitated their decision to return from a prosperous country in the Global North to the challenging living conditions of their home country in the Global South? How do they explain the role of their stay-behind families in shaping their return migration trajectory? Informed by social network theory, this article showcases the agency of North-South return migrants as active social actors in the process, wherein their return is shaped by transnational relationships, particularly family ties, regardless of the context of return. Family ties act as a driving force of return migration not only when stay-behind families provide emotional and practical support to return migrants but also when migrants feel a sense of duty towards family members who have remained in the homeland and may need their care. This study contributes to scholarship on return migration by undertaking a critical examination of return migration theories grounded in economic models. In the study of voluntary return migration, scholars have focused significant attention on the economic push and pull factors informed by the rational choice theory. The economic models, however, do not fully explain the seemingly puzzling North-South return cases where migrants participate in return migration from a prosperous country to an economically adverse context of their homeland. This study highlights the role of family ties in return migration process and challenges the dichotomous success-failure narrative about return.

Editorial: Return Migration and Reintegration: Discourses, Policies and Practices

Eveline Odermatt, Luzia Jurt — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Over the last few years, return migration has received growing attention in both academic and political discourse at the international, regional and national levels. This discourse on return migration is often linked to migrants’ safety and dignity. It was established during the development process of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM), and it helped to unify the position of the various stakeholders involved (Panizzon and Jurt 2023). Even today, it is still being maintained when it comes to supporting member states in implementing the objectives of the GCM (United Nations Network on Migration 2021).