Paper short abstract:

Based on research in Mali, this paper addresses the gap of knowledge production between academic and public policy discourses on post-return. Considering different role perceptions and ascriptions, it reflects potentials of more “serious” exchange, also signaling the (migrant) actors’ entanglements.

Paper long abstract:

Empirical incidence hints at an increasingly collective quality of post-return realities in some West African countries, e.g., Mali, confronted with considerable numbers of assisted and forced returns over time. Post-return research, including the one this paper bases on, has been reiterating findings such as upholding the migration cycle for sustainable return and reintegration, prepared and embedded, including the possibility of onward mobility for contributing to development and social well-being. Few of these findings have been transferred into political practice, even if some tendency towards more evaluation and reflection can be observed; rather, so-called voluntary assisted returns are often perceived as refoulements by migrants themselves. The gap between academic and public policy discourses not least derives from different role perceptions and ascriptions.

Based on extensive field research in Mali, this paper links herein, underlining that the complexity and ambivalence of sociological and ethnographic research may be hard to translate into immediate policy advice. Likewise, in-depth detail is indispensable for understanding and potentially contributing to returnees’ survival, their dignified and autonomous way to go on. Simultaneously, one could attest a lack of more systematic research on post-returns, their impacts and adverse effects on societies and people concerned: longitudinal analysis, statistical and mixed-method data can enable broader comparisons. The paper sheds light on these discrepancies of knowledge production, reflecting potentials of more “serious” exchange, even if running the risk of being policy driven. Moreover, it signals the involved (migrant) actors’ entanglements with discourses, practices of return and migration and a potential social change.