Moving Back or Moving Forward? Return migration after conflict

This thesis takes a transnational and multidimensional approach in order to overcome the dichotomies, generalizations and empirical shortcomings that surround the understanding of return migration within the migration–development–peace-building nexus. It uses the concept of multidimensional embeddedness, which provides an encompassing perspective on returnees’ identification with and participation in one or multiple spaces of belonging. It explores (1) the heterogeneity of the post-return experience, (2) the complex meanings of and motivations for return migration, (3) the hierarchization of returnees’ mobility or immobility and (4) returnees’ room to manoeuvre in their negotiations between spaces of belonging, in order to (5) interrogate the expectations on which the link between return migration, development and peace-building is based. The thesis answers the following main question: Under what circumstances are migrants returning from industrialized countries willing and able to contribute to change with regard to development and peace-building in their ‘post-conflict’ country of origin?