Roundtable: Looking back on going back: Methodological challenges in research on return migration

Abstract

The return of migrants and displaced persons has been attributed a key role in various fields of governance ranging from solutions to (protracted) displacement or the migration-development nexus to reducing the numbers of irregularized migrants in destination countries. Empirical findings regarding all these aspects present a mixed and incomplete picture. While research on the diverse trajectories of returning migrants has expanded rapidly over the last years, a thorough reflection on the methodological challenges and preparedness required on the side of the researcher is still pending.

Depending on the context, a return stigma, high mobility and remigration trends or a research focus on a specific type of returned migrants can cause challenges already during sampling. Inclusion of respondents subjected to marginalization poses additional ethical and methodological challenges. Grievance-related demands, unfulfilled expectations regarding assistance, unverifiable accounts of events and contested use of key terms are likely to be encountered during data collection. Time and funding constraints may limit the capacity for contextualization of the data and for follow-up research. Accounts by returned migrants and displaced persons can be shaped by retrospective reasoning and (trauma-induced or other) memory loss, which is relevant in terms of analysis and conclusions.

In this roundtable, participants and audience are invited to share and discuss their experiences with different research methodologies including participatory, long-term, and comparative research designs. The aim is to collect insights on how to best address the numerous challenges also relating to ethics and researcher positionality, mainly with a view to qualitative empirical research.

hybrid event