Rethinking Migration and Return in Southeastern Europe
This book provides an important new analytical framework for making sense of return, remigration, and circular mobility, conceptualising them as different phases of a wider migration process.
Using an in-depth case study of Albania and its two main destination countries, Italy and Greece, the book demonstrates that instead of being viewed as a linear path between origin and destination, migration should be seen as a segmented or cyclical pattern that may involve several localities and more than two countries. Characterized by important previous historical, social, economic, and political linkages, geographical proximity, but also high migration volatility and sustained flows in either directions, Albanian migration to Italy and Greece offers an optimal case study for analysing complex return, reintegration, and mobility processes. While interesting as a unique regional migration system, the lessons learned cast light on important migration and mobility dynamics that are relevant for labour migration in Europe, also from other important migrant origin countries in the EUs neighbourhood such as for instance Morocco or the Ukraine.
This rich theoretical and empirical study will be of interest to researchers within European studies and migration studies, as well as providing a useful contribution to policy debates on how to govern return migration, reintegration, and circular migration.
Eda Gemi is Senior Lecturer at the University of New York Tirana.
Anna Triandafyllidou holds the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration at Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada. She is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies.
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Edited by Mabel Moraa
Rethinking Migration and Return in Southeastern Europe
Albanian Mobilities to and from Italy and Greece
Eda Gemi and Anna Triandafyllidou
First published 2021
by Routledge
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2021 Eda Gemi and Anna Triandafyllidou
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Gemi, Eda, author. | Triandafyllidou, Anna, author.
Title: Rethinking migration and return in Southeastern Europe : Albanian mobilities to and from Italy and Greece / Eda Gemi and Anna Triandafyllidou.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2021. | Series: Routledge research on the global politics of migration | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020048793 (print) | LCCN 2020048794 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367361785 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429344343 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Return migration--Albania. | Albania--Emigration and immigration. | Italy--Emigration and immigration. | Greece--Emigration and immigration.
Classification: LCC JV8296 .G46 2021 (print) | LCC JV8296 (ebook) | DDC 304.8094965--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020048793
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020048794
ISBN: 978-0-367-36178-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-34434-3 (ebk)
This book marks a 15-year collaboration and friendship that started at the seminar room of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) when Eda started working at the EU-funded project POLITIS, on the civic participation of migrants in EU countries as one of our country experts. That was back in 2005. This collaboration has developed over several research projects, and has continued even when we both moved on to new jobs and new responsibilities, and also new geographical destinations. The origins of this book lie in our joint reflections on what drove many Albanian families during and after the most difficult years of the Greek financial crisis to return to Albania and what happened after this return. Did they stay? Did they manage to adapt? Did they move on? These questions became pressing empirical and policy questions as the crisis continued, and as our ongoing work in the context of the METOIKOS project (funded by DG Home) and the IRMA project (funded by the Greek Secretariat for Research) showed that there was a substantial and continuous return flow from both Italy and Greece to Albania. Almost ironically, both of us have been return migrants in our respective countries of origin, Albania and Greece, and know first-hand some of the dilemmas, challenges as well as opportunities that this involves. We have also both been involved in onwards mobility and remigration.
Work for this book started in 2014 and continued till 2017 thanks to the financial support of the Global Governance Programme of the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, where Anna had moved to in 2012. This limited funding made it possible for Eda to travel back to Albania and conduct interviews with returnees. As the work progressed, it became clear that it was important to include not only first-generation returnees, but also those that are not returning but rather moving back to their parents home country, notably the second generation. We were thus able to delve deeper into their experiences, and also to the academic literature, and identify some of the missing links between return, reintegration, and onward mobility, which this book seeks to fill.
This research was completed in the summer of 2020, under a pandemic lockdown, thanks to some additional funding support from the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration Program of Ryerson University. One might argue that the many seas that this book has travelled reflect the transnational mobility experiences of our interviewees. We are grateful to our respective families for their patience and support during these years as research work often inundates what should be free time and family time. This book is dedicated to our children, young cosmonauts of this mobile world.
