Rural Return Migration: Exploring Agency and Timing over the Life Course

Annett Steinführer , Thünen Institute of Rural Studies
Tialda Haartsen , University Groningen

Return migration has recently attracted increasing scholarly attention both in international migration research and in rural studies because return migrants are associated with having higher education and more and distinct social capital. Policy makers consider them to be a valuable ‘resource’ for local development. Return migration can be considered a ‘hybrid’ residential type which relates to both moving and staying; they are usually hidden behind the well-researched group of newcomers (or in-migrants). This paper wants to take a more nuanced perspective on rural return migration. We approach the rural as a place of multiple mobilities and acknowledge the multiplicity of geographical rural scales to return to. Our main interests relate to the agency of the returnees with regard to their return decision and its timing in the life course. We expect different degrees of individual agency (e.g. ‘just happened’, requested by others vs. always intended return migration) along with different degrees of renegotiations of the return moves with partners/spouses and the families of origin. Being part of the STAYin(g)Rural project which aims to understand how and why people reside and stay in rural areas, this paper uses both quantitative data from a large household survey and qualitative data from in-depth interviews undertaken in three European countries (Germany, Netherlands, UK), to provide a deeper understanding of return migrants in rural populations.

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 Presented in Session P1. Postercafe