Paper short abstract:

In this essay, I try to trace the narratives of taqdeer (destiny) and ummeed (hope) that are strategically employed by Pakistani deportees and "voluntary" returnees to save face and regain agency after their (re)migration.

Paper long abstract:

It is assumed that deportation and "voluntary" return mark the end of an irregular migrant's dangerous "illegal" journey. When it comes to the returning migrant's dreams and desires vis-a-vis return and reintegration, the journey is, however, far from over. In fact, very little is known about the lives of deportees and returnees -- except for the desire on the part of returning countries that economic reintegration will swiftly take place -- upon return. Calling into attention specific stories from my ongoing fieldwork, in this essay, I aim to draw a picture of what Pakistani returning migrants; deportees and returnees have to deal with upon their return from Germany. Shedding light on their lives back home in Pakistan, I try to engage with the vulnerabilities and difficulties but also the hopes of Pakistani irregular migrants and their families. In that vein, I wish to map out the affective economy borne out of irregular migration and subsequent return. Problematising the issue of reintegration and resettlement, I question the role of ethnoreligious ideas of taqdeer 'destiny' and ummeed 'hope' in regaining agency upon return. I also ask how both of these concepts may be respectively informed by the microcosms of contemporary Punjabi-Muslim cultures and the macrocosms of globalised political economies. I claim that the two are employed by my interlocutors to save face and regain agency. In other words, taqdeer and ummeed serve as arguments for accepting or rejecting their return to Pakistan, giving them some agency in the return process.