Transnational Return and Social Change

Description

New ways to understand the dynamics of return migration

Return has long been considered the end of a migration cycle. Today, returnees’ continued transnational ties, practices and resources have become increasingly visible. Transnational Return and Social Change joins what is now a growing fi eld of research and suggests new ways to understand the dynamics of return migration and the social changes that come along. It pays tribute to the meso-level impacts that follow the practices and resources migrant returnees mobilize across borders. With a particular focus on the meso-level the book takes up the challenge of transnational research and enquires into the consequences of return for local communities, organizations, social networks and groups. Presenting a collection of case studies dedicated to migrations across Europe and beyond, this book contributes new insights into the societal impact of migration in pluralized societies.

Introduction: A Meso-Level Approach to Linking Transnational Return and Social Change, Margit Fauser and Remus G. Anghel; When the Poor Migrate and Return: Class and Status Repositioning among Roma Transnational Returnees, Remus G. Anghel; Minority Institutions, German Transnational Return Migration and Social Change in Transylvania, Ovidiu Oltean; Returns of Failure: Involuntary Return Migration and Social Change in Ghana, Leander Kandilige and Geraldine A. Adiku; Religion, Return Migration and Change in an Emigration Country, Anatolie Coșciug; Diverse Return Mobilities and Evolving Identities among Returnees in Latvia, Aija Lulle, Zaiga Krisjane and Andris Bauls; ‘Be the Change’: Action Strategies and Implicit Knowledge in Transnational Return Migration, Claudia Olivier-Mensah; Polish Returnees’ Livelihood Strategies, Social Remittances and Influence on Communities of Origin, Anne White; Translocal ‘Return’, Social Change and the Value of Transcultural Capital: Second-Generation Turkish Germans in Antalya, Nilay Kilinç and Russell King; Afterword 3x3: Key Contributions, Emerging Questions and Ways Ahead After ‘Transnational Return and Social Change’, Paolo Boccagni; Index.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Sociology
• General officer
• Social sciences
• General

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 31 juillet 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785270963
• Langue: English

Extrait

Transnational Return and Social Change
Transnational Return and Social Change
Hierarchies, Identities and Ideas
Edited by Remus Gabriel Anghel, Margit Fauser and Paolo Boccagni
Anthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company
www.anthempress.com
This edition first published in UK and USA 2019
by ANTHEM PRESS
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or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK
and
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© 2019 Remus Gabriel Anghel, Margit Fauser and Paolo Boccagni editorial matter and selection; individual chapters © individual contributors
The moral right of the authors has been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-1-78527-094-9 (Hbk)
ISBN-10: 1-78527-094-X (Hbk)
This title is also available as an e-book.
CONTENTS
Introduction: A Meso-Level Approach to Linking Transnational Return and Social Change
Margit Fauser and Remus Gabriel Anghel
Part 1 CHANGING SOCIAL HIERARCHIES
Chapter 1 When the Poor Migrate and Return: Class and Status Repositioning among Roma Transnational Returnees
Remus Gabriel Anghel
Chapter 2 Minority Institutions, German Transnational Return Migration and Social Change in Transylvania
Ovidiu Oltean
Chapter 3 Returns of Failure: Involuntary Return Migration and Social Change in Ghana
Leander Kandilige and Geraldine A. Adiku
Part 2 RESHAPING COLLECTIVE IDENTITIES
Chapter 4 Religion, Return Migration and Change in an Emigration Country
Anatolie Coșciug
Chapter 5 Diverse Return Mobilities and Evolving Identities among Returnees in Latvia
Aija Lulle, Zaiga Krisjane and Andris Bauls
Part 3 QUESTIONING IDEAS, LOCAL KNOWLEDGE AND NORMS
Chapter 6 ‘Be the Change’: Action Strategies and Implicit Knowledge in Transnational Return Migration
Claudia Olivier-Mensah
Chapter 7 Polish Returnees’ Livelihood Strategies, Social Remittances and Influence on Communities of Origin
Anne White
Chapter 8 Translocal ‘Return’, Social Change and the Value of Transcultural Capital: Second-Generation Turkish-Germans in Antalya
Nilay Kılınç and Russell King
Afterword: 3 x 3: Key Contributions, Emerging Questions and Ways Ahead after Transnational Return and Social Change
Paolo Boccagni
List of Contributors
Index
INTRODUCTION
A MESO-LEVEL APPROACH TO LINKING TRANSNATIONAL RETURN AND SOCIAL CHANGE *
Margit Fauser and Remus Gabriel Anghel
Research in the field of migration has long focused on one-way movements and studied the processes of settlement and social integration, while the topic of return migration was much neglected (Gmelch 1980 ; King 2000 ). When return started to attracted attention, it was conceptualized as the end of a migration cycle, with migrants moving back home and resettling there (Gmelch 1980 ). In recent years, however, researchers started recognizing return as a more diversified process, enlarging the scope of return migration to encompass forms that were once overlooked. Such inclusion became particularly relevant when return became more apparent in the contexts where anti-migration discourses were becoming prevalent in many Western countries, economic growth was being sustained in the migrants’ countries of origin, the pace of mobility between the countries of origin and the countries of destination had accelerated, and cross-border connections had become more common. Adding to this now growing field of research, the contributors to this book suggest new ways of understanding the dynamics of return migration and the associated social changes in countries of origin.
In the existing literature, return migration was viewed from two crucial perspectives: (1) academic writings were concerned with the returnees’ motives and characteristics on the micro level, as well as their experiences upon re-integration into their native towns and villages, and (2) the migrants’ return was dealt with in terms of the economic impact they had in their home countries. Recent enthusiasm about the migration–development nexus led to a renewed interest in return migration and its developmental effects on the countries of origin, which are understood predominantly in economic terms. Parallel to – and in relation to – these inquiries are the broader transformations with which migration (including return migration) is associated in current scholarship. In a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies on migration and social change, Nicholas Van Hear (Van Hear 2010 ) re-introduced a fundamental question: ‘Does migration change societies?’ He asked how deep and enduring that change would be, what kind of change there has been and how it came about. This involves a perspective that considers human mobility as part of and shaped by the processes of globalization and social transformation and, in turn, as a contributor to these processes. Similarly, many migration scholars have addressed social transformation in terms of its profound structural changes from a political-economic perspective (Castles 2012 ) and, more recently, within a post-structuralist framework that considers power, discourse and social practices as being interconnected with hegemonic political projects (for an extensive overview of this topic, see Amelina et al. 2016 ).
Notwithstanding the importance of such deep-seated changes and macrostructural transformations, we argue for the need to study the dynamics and impact of return migration at the meso-level and thus to analyse more mundane types of changes. The contributors to this book share the belief that everyday processes and small-scale changes are as important as macro-transformations for understanding the societal impact of migration. Over the long term, some of these changes may have cascading effects that concatenate into deep transformations. Other changes may never extend beyond more restricted confines but can still be a factor in the pluralization of society. In addition, we conceptualize return migration from a dynamic, transnational perspective rather than seeing it as closure of a migration cycle, as has long been the prevailing view. On the one hand, our view helps to shed light on the ways in which transnational ties and practices shape migrants’ return. On the other hand, it shows how return migration leads to the emergence of new transnational involvements, ties and practices (or the transformation of existing ones), and thus how resources are continuously mobilized. Therefore, our focus is on the meso-level processes of change in local communities, social groups, networks and organizations and on how these processes evolve through returnees’ continued or renewed transnational practices and resources. The argument we aim to put forward is that the missing meso-link that Thomas Faist ( 2000 ) identified in the theory of migration is also missing when it comes to theorizing about its consequences. Theorizing a link between transnational return and meso-level social change can help us better understand the dynamics on the ground and adds one more element in attempts to answer questions about whether and how migration changes society.
In this introductory chapter, we will expand on the meso-level focus just described and will delineate the contributions of the subsequent chapters. The introduction consists of four parts: In the first part, we examine the role of migrants’ return with regard to earlier and current debates and theories of social change. In the second part, we define our understanding of return migration as transnational return . In the third part, we introduce three key questions that are guiding our endeavour to link transnational return and meso-level social change and explain how the chapters herein will help to address them. Thus, our inquiry begins with a focus on the transnational practices that returnees engage in and on the types of resources or capital they transfer. Further on, we ask what practices, social relations and social categories are changing and what the consequences are for social hierarchies, collective identities, ideas and cultural capital (local cultural knowledge and norms). The fourth part describes the methodologies employed in the chapters that follow and provides a brief outline of the book’s content. Lastly, we explore how meso-level social change is occurring. The concluding section summarizes the main arguments we have put forward and that are substantiated throughout the book.
The Debates on Social Change and Migrants’ Return
Social change has been a main subject of sociological inquiry from the early years of the discipline. Since the classic writings of Durkheim, Weber and Marx, social theory has been concerned with societal stability and change, as driven by economic forces, technology, social structures, ideas or human agency. Thus, social change was largely associated with modernization and economic growth, which have been addressed (particularly in post-war social thinking) from the perspectives of structural functionalism and conflict theory.
In keeping with this approach, the return of migrants has been s