ABSTRACT

Return migration is a topic of growing interest among academics and policy makers. Nonetheless, issues of psychosocial wellbeing are rarely discussed in its context.

Return Migration and Psychosocial Wellbeing problematises the widely-held assumption that return to the country of origin, especially in the context of voluntary migrations, is a psychologically safe process. By exploding the forced-voluntary dichotomy, it analyses the continuum of experiences of return and the effect of time, the factors that affect the return process and associated mobilities, and their multiple links with returned migrants' wellbeing or psychosocial issues.

Drawing research encompassing four different continents – Europe, North America, Africa and Asia – to offer a blend of studies, this timely volume contrasts with previous research which is heavily informed by clinical approaches and concepts, as the contributions in this book come from various disciplinary approaches such as sociology, geography, psychology, politics and anthropology. Indeed, this title will appeal to academics, NGOs and policy-makers working on migration and psychosocial wellbeing; and undergraduate and postgraduate students who are interested in the fields of migration, social policy, ethnicity studies, health studies, human geography, sociology and anthropology.

chapter 1|18 pages

Introduction

The interface between return migration and psychosocial wellbeing

part I|53 pages

The forced–voluntary continuum in return migration

chapter 2|18 pages

Return to wellbeing?

Irregular migrants and assisted return in Norway

chapter 3|17 pages

Forced to return?

Agency and the role of post-return mobility for psychosocial wellbeing among returnees to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Poland

chapter 4|16 pages

Between ‘voluntary’ return programs and soft deportation

Sending vulnerable migrants in Spain back ‘home’

part II|53 pages

Ancestral returns, adaptation and re-migration

chapter 5|18 pages

Roots migration to the ancestral homeland and psychosocial wellbeing

Young Polish diasporic students

chapter 6|15 pages

‘This country plays tricks on you’

Portuguese migrant descendant returnees narrate economic crisis-influenced ‘returns’

part III|55 pages

Asylum systems, assisted returns and post-return mobilities

chapter 8|20 pages

‘Burning without fire’ in Sweden

The paradox of the state’s attempt to safeguard deportees’ psychosocial wellbeing

chapter 9|16 pages

The return of refugees from Kenya to Somalia

Gender and psychosocial wellbeing

chapter 10|17 pages

Time heals?

A multi-sited, longitudinal case study on the lived experiences of returnees in Armenia

part IV|74 pages

Life course, family and health

chapter 11|18 pages

The need to belong

Latvian youth returns as dialogic work

chapter 12|18 pages

Migration and return migration in later life to Albania

The pendulum between subjective wellbeing and place

chapter 13|19 pages

To stay or to go?

The motivations and experiences of older British returnees from Spain

chapter 14|17 pages

‘Is this really where home is?’

Experiences of home in a revisited homeland among ageing Azorean returnees

chapter 15|17 pages

Conclusions

Exploring the multiple complexities of the return migration–psychosocial wellbeing nexus