Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates how returnees’ reintegration processes are shaped by gender. We identify specific challenges that emerged from gender identities, either experienced by the returnees themselves or attributed to them by family members and policy actors in the Gambia, Guinea and Senegal.

Paper long abstract:

Return migration is not only a temporal and spatial process, but a far-reaching social and personal experience, which goes beyond the reintegration of return migrants into the labour markets. This paper engages with the social contours of reintegration, namely with the complex array of gender aspects inherent to the return process. Our main focus is to investigate how returnees’ reintegration processes are shaped by gender. We identify specific challenges and stigmata that emerged from gender identities, either experienced by the returnees themselves or attributed to them by family members and policy actors.

The paper draws from ethnographic work conducted among non-assisted and assisted returnees by IOs and NGOS, family members, and key actors in the Gambia, Germany, Guinea, Senegal, and Switzerland. The data collection is part of an ongoing transnational project, funded by the Swiss Network for International Studies.

Our preliminary findings reveal that the returnees’ reintegration experiences are strongly inverwoven with male and female identities. Overall, male and female returnees face different struggles in their reintegration process. Hence, it is crucial that support structures are tailored more specifically to these needs. Secondly, the gender-specific obstacles encountered by returnees are controversial among all actors involved; e.g. contested conceptions of the impact of ‘coming back as a looser’ on the male breadwinner returnee or on the female returnee, often viewed as disobedient future wife.

The paper aims to contribute to a more nuanced approach to gender dynamics inherent to reintegration in the broader discussions surrounding return migration and gender.