3. Return Migration in Theory & Practice
3.2 Return Migration in the Policy World: Complex on Paper, Less So in Practice
As described in the previous section, scholarly inquiry on return migration has evolved to challenge the conventional wisdom that repatriation is the most natural solution to forced migration. The
93 Adamson 2006.
94 Adamson 2006.
95 United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division 2016.
96 UNHCR 2017a.
international community’s approach to implementing repatriation programs has also evolved.
International policymakers have become increasingly aware – perhaps through trial and error – that return migration is not a simple solution, nor is the process of repatriation limited to the physical return of refugees to their countries-of-origin. Instead, current international frameworks designate three potential “durable solutions” to “migration crises”:97 repatriation, local integration in the first country-of-asylum, and resettlement in a third country. Still, repatriation is frequently assumed to be the best of these options. In 2011, then UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon reaffirmed this preference stating, “Voluntary repatriation in conditions of safety and dignity is often the preferred durable solution for refugees.”98
In promoting voluntary repatriation, there is an implicit assumption that refugees prefer to go back to their countries-of-origin. Indeed, many refuges want to return to their homeland and see no alternative acceptable future.99 For example, the 2015 documentary series “Life on Hold” highlights the story of Haifa, a Syrian woman living in Lebanon. In her interview Haifa insists that despite the horrors she experienced during the war in Syria, and her two years living abroad, she is not a refugee.100 Like many other refugees around the world, Haifa states with no uncertainty, “I just want to live in my country.”101 However, many other forcibly displaced persons do not want to return, or least wish to remain in their country-of-asylum until they feel it is safe to go back. Given this heterogeneity of
97 These terms are widely used in the international community. However, they are also somewhat problematic in that a
“durable solution” implies the end of a migration cycle, and “migration crisis” suggests that the majority of migration is irregular, dangerous, and/or an emergency.
98 UNSG Ban Ki Moon 2011.
99 Kibreab 1999; Stefansson 2004.
100 Al Jazeera 2015.
101 Al Jazeera 2015.
refugees’ preferences, some scholars have pushed back against the idea that homecoming for refugees is “impossible” because forced migrants have no home to which they can return.102
Still, refugees’ preferences unfortunately (though unsurprisingly) are not the primary consideration in the promotion of voluntary repatriation as a durable solution. Instead, the penchant to promote and induce “voluntary” repatriation reflects, in part, would-be host-countries’ interests in keeping refugees in their countries-of-origin, and the growing trend discussed in the previous section of skirting non-refoulement obligations.103 Hosting and resettling refugees is a costly responsibility that few countries (in the Global North or Global South) are keen to take on. When the European Union, United States and Australia call upon countries of first asylum to live up to their international obligations to protect refugees, countries in the Global South cry foul that they must bear the majority of the “burden.” Consequently, it is not uncommon for host-countries to coerce refugees to self-repatriate by creating an inhospitable environment, or for host- and home-countries to pressure UNHCR into tripartite agreements that orchestrate the return of refugees when migrants “safety and dignity” cannot be guaranteed.104 Therefore, “without the possibility of local integration or resettlement as widely available ‘durable solutions’ to refugee exile, the international refugee regime is left with repatriation as the solution to refugee exile.”105
While return migration remains the de facto preferred solution to protracted forced migration situations, the international community has come a long way in acknowledging the complexities involved in implementing voluntary repatriation processes. In a much-cited speech to UNHCR in
102 Kibreab 1999; Said 1979, 2000.
103 For further discussion on this see Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen 2011; T. Gammeltoft-Hansen 2014; Orchard 2016;
Zetter 2007.
104 See for example Chimni 2004; Blitz, Sales, and Marzano 2005.
105 K. Long 2013.
2005, then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan stated, “The return of refugees and internally displaced persons is a major part of any post-conflict scenario. And it is far more than just a logistical operation.
Indeed, it is often a critical factor in sustaining a peace process and in revitalizing economic activity.”106 This principle is incorporated into UNHCR guidelines, which affirm that “return and reintegration is not a simple reversal of displacement, but a dynamic process involving individuals, households, and communities that have changed as a result of their experience of being displaced.”107 Thus, in theory (and on paper) leaders in the international community responsible for orchestrating and supporting return understand that repatriation is a complex component of war-to-peace transitions.
In practice, however, the international approach to return migration reduces repatriation support to the spheres of emergency humanitarian aid and short- to medium-term economic development. This is evident in the same UNHCR “Policy Framework and Implementation Strategy”
document quoted above as acknowledging the complexity of return migration. These guidelines go on to affirm that “UNHCR’s support to the reintegration process is essentially humanitarian in nature, with important links to the early recovery process.”108 Successful repatriation of refugees is then measured on a continuum of emergency humanitarian need to sustainable economic development. In fact, UNHCR explicitly states that “these activities should nonetheless be approached within a broader developmental perspective”109 and even notes that one way international actors can “strengthen peacebuilding” is to enable refugees who do not voluntarily repatriate to send remittances back to their country-of-origin: “Refugees who are resettled, who integrate locally in their country-of-asylum,
106 UNSG Kofi Annan 2005.
107 UNHCR 2008b, pt. II. 4.
I use this document as the primary point of reference because it is UNHCR’s most recent publicly available guidance on return migration. UNHCR is the lead agency managing international support for the return of refugees under
international coordination mechanisms.
108 UNHCR 2008b, V, 31
109 UNHCR 2008b, VI, 33
or who are able to access regular migration opportunities may be in a position to support the development of their homeland by means of remittances, the transfer of skills and technologies, as well as the establishment of new trading and investment networks.”110
To be fair, UNHCR does acknowledge that reintegration is not simply an economic endeavor, and describes successful reintegration as “the progressive establishment of conditions which enable returnees and their communities to exercise their social, economic, civil, political and cultural rights,”
and the “erosion (and ultimately the disappearance) of any differentials that set returnees apart from other members of their community.”111 But the approach outlined above is not designed to meet goals beyond the economic sector. Moreover, UNHCR’s potential to support peacebuilding and reconciliation during the process of return migration is circumscribed by a relatively short-term approach to repatriation programming. While there is no exit-strategy per-se, UNHCR will “normally seek to complete its post-return activities within an indicative time frame of three years.”112 After this point remaining responsibilities are transferred to development partners, again placing future emphasis on the economic rather than political aspects of return migration.113
Thus, despite recognizing the complexities of voluntary repatriation in theory, in practice the international community still treats return migration as a technical endeavor. When repatriation programs are implemented, international organizations like UNHCR and the IOM primarily focus on the logistics of getting returning migrants settled in their countries of origins, and providing basic short-term humanitarian support, as opposed to approaching return migration within the broader political context of post-conflict peacebuilding. By placing return migration squarely within an
110 UNHCR 2008b, VI, 33
111 UNHCR 2008b, secs. II, 6–7
112 UNHCR 2008b, VIII, 65
113 UNHCR 2008b, VIII, 65
emergency humanitarian relief to sustainable economic development framework, international interveners depoliticize returnees as actors in their local communities, and are likely to overlook the potential for return migration to change local political dynamics.114 Building sustainable livelihoods is absolutely necessary for returnees. But a development-centric approach can depoliticize a very political process. In an emergency-aid to economic development frame, conflict between returnees and non-migrants is interpreted as simple competition for scarce resources – resolvable through more effective distribution and implementation of aid.115 This approach is decidedly anti-politics, and consequently can preclude international interveners from recognizing broader political and social dynamics in countries-of-origin resulting from return migration.
Yet, the pattern of tensions between returnees and stayees observed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, South Sudan, El Salvador described at the beginning of this chapter, suggest that voluntary return migration after protracted displacement is not necessarily a natural solution. More often than not, the lines between voluntary and involuntary return are blurred. Even more importantly, the durability of return migration as a solution remains in question as return population flows rarely mark an endpoint to either violence or mobility, and there are multiple examples of repeat migration subsequent to return.
This is not to say return is impossible. As described above, in many cases refugees do want to return and they succeed in settling in their countries-of-origin. Many returnees also participate in the promotion of peace and reconciliation once back in their countries-of-origin.116 Still the process of
114 Cronin-Furman, Gowrinathan, and Zakaria 2017 expand on a similar argument linking development and livelihoods programming to women’s de-politicization in post-conflict and developing contexts.
115 Macrae 1999
116 Van Houte 2016; Lyons 2004.
return is equally political as economic, and return migration can also create new forms of conflict between migrants and non-migrants in post-conflict societies.