Browsing by Author "Sato, Mariko"

This thesis explores women’s voluntary return migration in the context of Somaliland. In recent years, return migration has increasingly become a topic of interest within the migration-development discourse. However, the real-life experiences of returnees remain a less researched topic. Return migration is often seen simply as a ‘return home’. In this thesis the notions of transnationalism, intersectionality, return preparedness and embeddedness are utilized to analyze the complex and gendered process of return. The aim of this thesis is to explore how do women experience, practice, and express return and embeddedness in Somaliland. This study provides an analysis of: 1) the female Somali return migrants’ motivations and expectations for return, 2) the central opportunities and challenges in the process of becoming economically, socially, and psychosocially embedded within the society of return, and 3) the ways how returnees negotiate the opportunities and challenges in becoming embedded. This study was carried out with an ethnographic approach, including a six-month field research period in Somaliland. The research data consists of semi-structured interviews (24) and participatory observations. Theory directed content analysis was employed to analyze the research data. The data demonstrates that return migration of Somali women in Somaliland is a complex social process. The return migrant women’s motivations and expectations for return are often constructed transnational interactions with the diaspora and the original home country. Upon return, return migrants need to negotiate their belonging and identities within a web of social norms, mutual expectations, and intersectional encounters. The social categories of generation, clan, religion, and ‘returnee women’ situate the return migrant women within the society. The meanings of these categories are reproduced and renegotiated in everyday encounters with locals. Generally the return migrant women are able to successfully embed themselves economically, but encounter notable intersectional challenges in becoming embedded socially and psychosocially. Furthermore the analysis reveals that women’s return migration to Somaliland is characterized with onward migration as full embeddedness is rarely achieved. The study concludes that return migration is a gendered, transnational, and intersectional phenomenon. This study suggests a need to further study the experiences and practices of return migration in different localities, as return migration is shown to be a highly contextual and situational process.