Transnational Return and Social Change

Remus Gabriel Anghel is senior researcher at the Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities and member of the Doctoral School in Political and Communication Sciences at the Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj Napoca, Romania. Margit Fauser is senior research and principal investigator at the Faculty of Sociology, University of Bielefeld, Germany. Her main research fi elds are transnational migration, localities and cities, citizenship, borders and social inequalities. Paolo Boccagni is associate professor at the Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento, Italy. He is also the principal investigator of the ERC StG project HOMInG – the home-migration nexus (2016–2021).

• Introduction: A Meso-Level Approach to Linking Transnational Return and Social Change, Margit Fauser and Remus G. Anghel; When the Poor Migrate and Return: Class and Status Repositioning among Roma Transnational Returnees, Remus G. Anghel; Minority Institutions, German Transnational Return Migration and Social Change in Transylvania, Ovidiu Oltean; Returns of Failure: Involuntary Return Migration and Social Change in Ghana, Leander Kandilige and Geraldine A. Adiku; Religion, Return Migration and Change in an Emigration Country, Anatolie Coșciug; Diverse Return Mobilities and Evolving Identities among Returnees in Latvia, Aija Lulle, Zaiga Krisjane and Andris Bauls; ‘Be the Change’: Action Strategies and Implicit Knowledge in Transnational Return Migration, Claudia Olivier-Mensah; Polish Returnees’ Livelihood Strategies, Social Remittances and Influence on Communities of Origin, Anne White; Translocal ‘Return’, Social Change and the Value of Transcultural Capital: Second-Generation Turkish Germans in Antalya, Nilay Kilinç and Russell King; Afterword 3x3: Key Contributions, Emerging Questions and Ways Ahead After ‘Transnational Return and Social Change’, Paolo Boccagni; Index.

‘In advancing research on the transnational implications of return migration, Anghel, Fauser and Boccagni have assembled an excellent collection of richly detailed empirical studies framed by their insightful introductory and concluding chapters. The result constitutes a major contribution to a critical, grounded, relational approach to the quotidian changes brought about by return, including the potential for generating new transnational engagements. This is essential reading for migration scholars.’ —Peter Kivisto, Richard A. Swanson Chair of Social Thought, Augustana College, USA