Remus Gabriel Anghel - Transnational Return and Social Change

Transnational Return and Social Change

Hierarchies, Identities and Ideas

Edited by Remus Gabriel Anghel, Margit Fauser and Paolo Boccagni

Anthem Press

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This edition first published in UK and USA 2019

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2019 Remus Gabriel Anghel, Margit Fauser and Paolo Boccagni editorial matter and selection; individual chapters individual contributors

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN-13: 978-1-78527-094-9 (Hbk)

ISBN-10: 1-78527-094-X (Hbk)

This title is also available as an e-book.

CONTENTS

Margit Fauser and Remus Gabriel Anghel

Remus Gabriel Anghel

Ovidiu Oltean

Leander Kandilige and Geraldine A. Adiku

Anatolie Cociug

Aija Lulle, Zaiga Krisjane and Andris Bauls

Claudia Olivier-Mensah

Anne White

Nilay Kln and Russell King

Paolo Boccagni

Margit Fauser and Remus Gabriel Anghel

anti-migration discourses were becoming prevalent in many Western countries, economic growth was being sustained in the migrants countries of origin, the pace of mobility between the countries of origin and the countries of destination had accelerated, and cross-border connections had become more common. Adding to this now growing field of research, the contributors to this book suggest new ways of understanding the dynamics of return migration and the associated social changes in countries of origin.

In this introductory chapter, we will expand on the meso-level focus just described and will delineate the contributions of the subsequent chapters. The introduction consists of four parts: In the first part, we examine the role of migrants return with regard to earlier and current debates and theories of social change. In the second part, we define our understanding of return migration as transnational return. In the third part, we introduce three key questions that are guiding our endeavour to link transnational return and meso-level social change and explain how the chapters herein will help to address them. Thus, our inquiry begins with a focus on the transnational practices that returnees engage in and on the types of resources or capital they transfer. Further on, we ask what practices, social relations and social categories are changing and what the consequences are for social hierarchies, collective identities, ideas and cultural capital (local cultural knowledge and norms). The fourth part describes the methodologies employed in the chapters that follow and provides a brief outline of the books content. Lastly, we explore how meso-level social change is occurring. The concluding section summarizes the main arguments we have put forward and that are substantiated throughout the book.

The Debates on Social Change and Migrants Return

Social change has been a main subject of sociological inquiry from the early years of the discipline. Since the classic writings of Durkheim, Weber and Marx, social theory has been concerned with societal stability and change, as driven by economic forces, technology, social structures, ideas or human agency. Thus, social change was largely associated with modernization and economic growth, which have been addressed (particularly in post-war social thinking) from the perspectives of structural functionalism and conflict theory.

Beyond the narrow confines of the developmentalist focus, scholars have more recently been debating the broader social changes and transformations and their link to migration, albeit not specifically with the migrants return.

A Transnational Perspective on Return Migration

).

In this section, therefore, we build on this emergent scholarship (including the contributions to this book) to discuss the connection between return and transnationality and to flesh out the notion of transnational return. In order to unravel the relationship between return and transnational connections, it is helpful to distinguish the following three dimensions (Faist et al.

We argue for a two-way relationship between return and transnationality. Analytically, as elucidated below, we distinguish, first, the relationship between the ways in which transnational ties and practices shape return, and, second, how return (re)produces transnationality. Nevertheless, we acknowledge that this relationship is often difficult to disentangle empirically because it takes place within transnational social spaces.

Therefore, in line with other researchers, we consider return migration as an unsettled and transnational process (Markowitz

Linking Transnational Return and Meso-Level Social Change

In considering return migration from a transnational perspective, we aim to shed light on the social changes that emerge from the return of migrants to their places of birth or ancestry. Rather than accounting for deep shifts and macro-level transformations, we are interested in what occurs on the meso-level of localities, communities, social networks and organizations. First, this concerns the nature of transnational practices and the resources transferred back home; in this vein, we ask the question, What is being transferred by return migrants? Second, we look into the social changes produced by transnational return by asking two related questions: What is being changed? and How does social change occur?

). With regard to our second question, which focused on what is being changed, we have identified three dimensions of social reality as relevant domains of change, namely social hierarchies, collective identities and cultural capital (especially local cultural norms and knowledge). Our third question concerns the link between transfers and changes, asking What are the mechanisms through which social change occurs?

) and allows for the cross-border transfer and mobilization of other types of capital. Using the framework of remittances or capitals, scholars shed light on practices and transfers beyond financial exchanges and their impact on economic development. It is also crucial to the perspective on transnational return to consider that transfers are not transmitted one-way or one-time only. Instead, returnees may continuously mobilize resources in transnational spaces that connect countries of emigration and immigration.

Such practices and resource transfers can help in the (re)adaptation process, as in the case of returnees from Germany to either Romania (Oltean, this volume) or Turkey (Kln and King, this volume) who successfully mobilize their economic capital and, more importantly, their institutionalized and embodied cultural capital upon their return, having been enabled by a local context that is favourable to its validation. Ethnic Germans who emigrated from Transylvania (Romania) to Germany and eventually returned to the city of Sibiu were able to capitalize on the professional skills they had acquired in Germany, being hired by German companies that had settled in Transylvania during the post-socialist openings or through associations funded by German donors. Similarly, second-generation children of immigrants from Turkey who returned from Germany to their parental homeland are making use of their German language skills and cultural knowledge in their professional lives in Antalya.