Periodic Reporting for period 3 - Reintegrate (Reintegration Governance)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2023-07-01 al 2024-12-31
The Reintegrate project will combine the fields of reintegration and migration governance to establish a new sub-field of reintegration governance (RG). This project will develop a conceptual understanding of what is reintegration governance, its implementation and effectiveness and a new theoretical framework of how different forms of reintegration governance shape returnees reintegration outcomes across an in-depth comparative analysis of four different states: Nepal, Nigeria, the Philippines and Serbia. The project is rooted in the nexus between policies and migrants agency by using a trajectories approach to illustrate the role that returnees play in their own reintegration outcomes. The project makes several original contributions. First, this will be the first study that examines how reintegration is governed and will take a global approach to compare different regimes of RG. Second, the project uses an original analytical and empirical approach to compare RG across four case study countries that are each selected to represent a different form of RG. The reintegrate project will have an impact on migration studies, human geography and political science through the establishment of the new sub-field of reintegration governance.
Several achievements have been made in this reporting period. First, all data collection has been completed in Serbia and Nepal, totalling the collection of 205 qualitative interviews, 80 with key stakeholders, 105 with return migrants and 20 with spouses of return migrants. Second, all preparations have been made for the completion of the data collection in the Philippines and Nigeria in 2024. Third, a database has been developed for comparing origin country reintegration policies. The project website was developed and flyers and brochures have been developed for respondents. All ethics deliverables to date have been completed.
The data collected to date has enabled a detailed understanding of different forms of reintegration governance including how reintegration governance is created and implemented, the multiple actors involved in reintegration governance, and multi-level reintegration governance. We have found and will assess differences between local reintegration policies and national reintegration policies. The comparative country contexts are working well to highlight the differences between reintegration policies targeted towards returning labour migrants (Nepal and Philippines) and reintegration policies targeted towards assisted or humanitarian returns and deportees (Nigeria and Serbia). The different policy and return contexts highlight the diversity of reintegration policies. The expected results are already leading to a new typology for understanding reintegration policies and will lead to further conceptual understandings of reintegration governance and how these policies impact return migrants reintegration trajectories.