The return of migrants to their country of origin and the development of efficient return measures have become more prominent on the political agenda of many Western European countries. Since policymakers prefer ‘voluntary’ return, governmental programmes to support the return of migrants – Assisted Voluntary Return (AVR) programmes – were developed as far back as the 1970s and have played an increasingly important role in migration policy over the last three decades. At the same time, general migration policy and welfare systems have undergone profound change, including in the meanings and connotations attached to social welfare, return support and return policy. This raises questions about the implications of these broader societal and policy changes for the widely implemented AVR programmes. In this article, we discuss the interpretation and evolution of AVR programmes by analyzing how one particular European country, Belgium, has developed its AVR programme over time. We explore the evolution of the programme's content, target group and institutional positioning, which shed light on its changing goals and are closely linked to a broader shift towards a ‘managerial’ approach to migration policy and the welfare state. We argue that return support may become decontextualized when it adopts ‘conditional entitlement’ as a central principle. This leads to strong differentiation, based on personal responsibility, between ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ migrants, the levelling down of the support given to returnees, and a more coercive voluntary return policy in which social support is linked to deportation.

The detention and deportation of (undocumented) non-citizens has become one of the political priorities in the realisation of states' internal migration control. The increase in detention and deportation of migrants raises questions about these practices' implicit functions and their impact on the migrants subjected to detention. This paper aims to contribute to our understanding of the contemporary expansion of immigration detention by focusing on detained migrants' lived experiences and perspectives on detention practices. On the basis of interviews with 31 detainees in Belgian detention centres, we explore how migrants' self-perceptions relate to current legal and societal discourses. By referring to their connections with the host country through material, familial or emotional ties, the interviewees strongly oppose their detention and upcoming deportation. Thereby, they bring the (contested) experience of belonging firmly to the centre of this paper, referring to the connection between 'body' and 'place'. They also point to the large and growing gap between their lived experiences on the one hand and the realities and political discourses of (legal) belonging on the other. In addition, detainees' lived experiences shed light onto the burden and consequences of lacking citizenship, and, simultaneously, demonstrate how individuals try to assert alternative, identity-based claims, and/or denyor at least avoidthe idea of deportation. We hereby hypothesise that this denial, as also the growing gap between detainees' own perspectives and policy and public discourses might have a major impact on migrants' wellbeing and their reintegration processes back 'home'.

The return of refugees and migrants back to their country of origin is an important topic on the agenda of Western European governments, as return is considered as the most “durable solution” for the “refugee problem”, and as an instrument with which to tackle “illegal” migration. However, these migration policies generally lack a clear evidence base, as little studies have focused on returnees' current living situations and on their perspectives on the re‐migration process. In this paper we therefore try to listen to returnees' voices, through in‐depth interviews with four Nepalese migrants both before (in Belgium) and after (in Nepal) their return, and with 16 returnees after their return to Nepal. The interviews show how most returnees start with a disadvantageous “point of departure” to realize a “successful” return: mostly, they do not really depart “voluntarily”, and they only have limited possibilities for preparing their return and setting realistic expectations. But also, back in the “home country”, most returnees judge their current economic, social and political living situation as bad, meeting little of the expectations that they set before they returned. The participants consider the support they received through the NGOs' return programmes as minimal, because they are mostly limited to a small amount of financial support, and thus of little significance in these returnees' efforts to rebuild their lives in their “home” country. If return programmes want to make a difference in returnees' lives, they should have two extensive components in the “home” and the “host” country, incorporating in both components an integral approach, including economic, political, social and psychological aspects. Viewing these findings, it is not surprising that most interviewees eventually evaluate their return as unsuccessful, and many returnees consider re‐emigration, all of which clearly questions the current basis of worldwide migration policies.

Few studies on transnationalism have focused on migrants who return to their country of origin with insufficient resources and limited mobility. This study sheds light on the transnational connections of those who went back to Georgia and Armenia from Belgium on a voluntary assisted return and reintegration programme. Using Boccagni’s (2012) analytical framework, we reveal the returnees’ interpersonal, institutional and symbolic transnational ties. Although these ties were often limited and had little effect on their daily lives, and although the migrants’ desire to participate in the transnational field rarely matched their ability to do so, they nonetheless attached great value to them symbolically and emotionally. Our findings question current conceptualizations of transnationalism and the focus on the home country as the sole context in which transnational ties should have an impact. We believe that there is a need to pay greater attention to the subjective and symbolic dimensions of the return–transnationalism field, including the relationship between integration and return migration policies

Studies have reported alarmingly high rates of traumatic experiences for refugee populations. While nearly all refugees experienced trauma in their country of origin, a vast majority of those seeking protection abroad also face (extreme) violence during their journeys and once in the country of destination. By concentrating on the migratory experiences of about 300 unaccompanied minors that we approached in Libya, Italy, Greece, and Belgium, this article analyses how different forms of violence are inflicted on these young migrants while moving to Europe. By concentrating on personal accounts of (recurrent) interactions with the EU migration and border management tools, we reveal the structural violence within the day-to-day governance of migration. Often framed as unintended or accidental, the article discusses how violence is instead ubiquitous, as it is systematically inflicted on migrants—including unaccompanied minors—in the form of repeated series of violent events or “loops of violence.” Importantly, such manifestations of violence are perpetrated by key institutional and non-institutional actors in the “migration industry” who are (in)directly involved in managing migration both inside and outside of the EU. Conceptually, we rely on K. E. Dempsey’s political geography of the different typologies of violence within Europe’s governance of migration and asylum and use it to concentrate on key transitional phases/fractures in migratory trajectories—i.e., as unaccompanied young migrants (try to) cross international borders and legal boundaries.

Research on processes of reintegration in the country to which migrants return has significantly increased over the past decade. It has widened and challenged our understandings and conceptualization of the meaning, the processes and returnees' experiences of reintegration. The growing literature demonstrates and recognizes that reintegration is a challenging process occurring across different life domains (Flahaux, 2013;Koser & Kuschminder, 2015;Ruben et al., 2009). It is multi-phased, long-lasting and impacted by a multiplicity of factors at the individual, social and structural level (Cassarino, 2008;Kuschminder, 2017a;Markowitz & Stefansson, 2004). Moreover, research has pointed at the strong symbolic and instrumental value that reintegration, and more broadly return migration, holds within community discourses and migration policy (Cassarino, 2008;Lietaert & Van Gorp, 2019).Yet, it remains unclear how these complex processes of reintegration should be conceptualized and analysed, how returnees may interpret their own reintegration processes, and finally, how reintegration takes different shapes in different contexts.The rise in reintegration literature reflects the growing importance of the need to understand reintegration processes, both as observable phenomenon and as a discursive project. When return migrants are unable to reintegrate, they may become vulnerable members of society or create additional precarities for their society. They may risk ostracization or feeling the need to migrate in unsafe contexts. It is possible that returnees unable to reintegrate are the same individuals that re-migrate to destinations wherein they are unable to obtain residency and must live irregularly, placing them again in a context of high vulnerability. Creating an enabling environment for successful reintegration and mitigating policies and factors that further complicate reintegration processes is important globally in order to prevent precarization of particular migrants, returnees and communities. This special issue was initiated as a result of a symposium on 'Reintegration processes and differentiated reintegration support measures' at the first annual conference of the Centre for the Social Study of Migration and

Many European countries have developed assisted voluntary return and reintegration (AVRR) programmes to support the return and reintegration of migrants who do not have a legal residence permit. There is substantial involvement of social-care professionals in the implementation of these programmes. However, the contested nature of AVRR programmes has limited an in-depth understanding of the exact nature of reintegration support and the ways it affects migrants’ lives after return. Through exploring the usefulness of AVRR support from the perspectives of those receiving it and experienced caseworkers providing it in the context of the Belgian AVRR return programme to Armenia and Georgia, this article contributes to a better understanding of the possibilities and constraints of reintegration support. Based on interviews with seventy-nine returnees during the initial two years after their return, interviews with the caseworkers and observations of day-to-day interactions between both parties, four different understandings of the ‘usefulness’ of reintegration support are delineated: reintegration support (i) as central and necessary financial support; (ii) as insufficient, decontextualised and deceptive support; (iii) as selective support; and lastly (iv) as humane and negotiated support. These understandings then evoke reflections on the implications for those stakeholders developing or implementing AVRR support programmes.

The processes of re‐entering a society after an international move have been studied in several fields. In this article, we argue that the existing differences in conceptualizations of a “successful re‐entry” for different returning groups are created by particular social, political or theoretical ideas about mobility, which lead to biases in the understanding of re‐entry processes and influence support practices for returning groups. A critical analysis of the conceptualization of successful re‐entry of two extreme cases of returning people who both play to the interests of institutions that seek successful re‐entry, namely returned refugees and asylum seekers on the one hand and repatriates on the other, enables us to bring these assumptions to the fore. Our analysis reveals how the permeation of economic and spatial understanding and the absence of temporal and relational understanding distorts insights into re‐entry processes and creates blind spots in support practices for returning populations.