Return Migration and Nation Building in Africa

Adele Galipo is Honorary Research Associate at UCL Department of Social Science. She holds a PhD in anthropology and sociology of development from the Graduate Institute in Geneva and is a former Swiss National Science Foundation fellow and visiting academic at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), University of Oxford. Her research interests include return migration, transnationalism, diasporas and refugees, gender, humanitarian action and international development.

• 1. Introduction2. A man who has not travelled has no eyes: the travel of history, histories of travel3. The (trans)local organisation of power4. You will never get rid of what you were born with: returning qurbajoog5. Making culture, building a nation: Somali cultural festivals as laboratories of national-cultural identity6. Drinking tea at the Maan-soor Hotel, Hargeysa7. Toward trans-transnationalism

"Galipo’s book is theoretically ambitious and ethnographically well-founded. The author questions the concept of return and critically engages transnationalism, looking into power differences, the role of locales and the issue of nation-building. This book is inspiring way beyond the specific context of Somaliland and advances our thinking about current dynamics of migration." — Markus Virgil Hoehne, University of Leipzig, Germany"This book carefully explores how refugees who return to Somaliland are reshaping the national social, economic and political arena. The elegance of the study lies in the stories of people and the descriptions of fluid interactions at cultural festivals or in a hotel in Hargeysa. The reader is brought away from ready-made categories and invited to enter into all the nuances of everyday life." — Alessandro Monsutti, Professor, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva and Author of War and Migration (Routledge) and Homo itinerans (PUF)"By deftly constructing an ethnography of return, Adele Galipo transcends the bland migration-development nexus and reinvigorates the transnationalism and diaspora discourse by showing how return plays into challenges of globalisation, identity and transnational power." — Nicholas Van Hear, Deputy Director, Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), University of Oxford, UK"Responding to war and state collapse, Somali societies have since the early 1990s revealed future global scenarios creatively shaping remittance economies supported by technological innovation, internationalized trading networks, large-scale mobility and diasporas. Finely combining theoretical analyses and ethnographic details, Adele Galipo adds a new segment to this picture, refreshing discussions on returnees and local development." — Luca Ciabarri, Assistant Professor, University of Milan, Italy