Paper short abstract:

This paper engages with migrants who returned to Guinea and Senegal. It analyses returnees' justifications for return and their reintegration in a hostile return environment by highlighting how they navigate between their justification for return and the negative social perception of returnees.

Paper long abstract:

Over the past few years, we witness a growing European policy commitment in return migration as a suitable tool for reducing immigration rates and as a means of developing migrants’ countries of origin. This positive policy discourse on return migration in Europe, however, stays in sharp contrast to the public perception of return in West Africa. Here, a return is habitually viewed as the opposite of a successful life, and returnees often face social disproval, even more if they had secured status and carriers abroad. This paper engages with experiences of migrants who returned. First, it emphasises on migrants’ personal justifications for return. Second, we illustrate returnees’ reintegration processes in this hostile return environment by highlighting how they navigate between their justifications for return and the negative social perception of returnees.

The paper draws from ethnographic data collected amongst assisted and non-assisted return migrants within the scope of the project “Gender, Return Migration and Reintegration in Gambia, Guinea and Senegal”, funded by the Swiss Network for International Studies.

Our findings show a variety of justifications for return. Among these are the urge ‘to create something’, or the desire of ‘being part of the society again’, especially after having experienced social exclusion in the host countries. Returnees also expressed strong disillusions about Europe and its proclaimed values. However, returnees face diverse setbacks and adversities in their reintegration processes. These experiences make it difficult for them to maintain their justifications for return as counter narrative over time.