Paper short abstract:

This paper explores conflicting emotional standpoints, diverging time-frames and social positionings at play in irregular Sub-Saharan migrants' decisions to return that surround IOM's voluntary return programme from Morocco. It is based on six months (and ongoing) ethnographic fieldwork in Morocco.

Paper long abstract:

This paper discusses the findings of ongoing research on Sub-Saharan voluntary return migration from Morocco. Migrants' deportability has increased over the years in this country, so has their option for voluntary return. In 2018 Morocco had the eighth highest number of IOM's assisted voluntary returns (AVR), all towards West-Central Africa (IOM 2019 statistics).

Migrants interviewed frame their decision to return within the perspective of "souffrance" (suffering) which embraces their overall migratory trajectory, marked by hardship due to their irregular condition. Their long-term existential standpoint, emotionally charged, is at odds with the here-and-now managerial logic of AVR, focused on a formal assessment of voluntariness and immediate basic assistance. Long resisted as a failure, once embraced, the return can prove elusive to migrants. To returnees' dismay, registration to AVR falls into more or less lengthy waiting lists depending on budgetary constraints and donors' calendars. The absence of regular follow-ups between migrants and AVR implementers limits returnees' understanding of the programme and may alienate them from the return process. Waiting is experienced with frustration or powerlessness. In turn, returnees' urgent demand to return is interpreted by some AVR implementers as proof of the programme's pertinence.

Tired of waiting or reluctant to comply with AVR procedure, some migrants resort to alternative arrangements to return irregularly, worsening their precarious conditions. Others opt for tactical uses of AVR to advance their migratory project. I argue that embracing the affective economy of return may provide a more holistic and timely engagement with returnees.