Abstract
AbstractThis paper analyses how returned and transnational migrants can affect development and social change in the home country. It focuses on the Shkodra Region in Albania. Returnees and transnational migrants use the financial and social capital acquired during migration as mechanisms to readjust in their home country, while at the same time affecting development and social change. The paper deals with a specific returnees’ group, entrepreneur-returnees, and raises some main research questions: How is the social and cultural capital gained during migration used while setting up new enterprises? In what scale does this capital determine the success of the undertaking?Acting as agents of development, these migrants have taken advantage of their migration experience, especially in the opening of new enterprises. This process has also involved the non-migrant population through the introduction of new employment possibilities and the transmission of new ideas and knowledge.
Highlights
Return migration is a phenomenon that has emerged in the Albanian context, especially after the 2000s
Owing to various reasons, such as the relative improvement of the economic and social situation in Albania, the economic crisis that hit the primary countries of destination—Italy and Greece, or the desire to invest in the home country, the number of returning migrants has been on the rise, peaking in 2013
This paper focuses on a specific group of returning migrants—returnee entrepreneurs—and raises some main research questions: a) How is the employment behaviour of returning migrants adjusted to the new environment in the home country, according to their previous experience in the host country? b) In what ways is the financial and social capital used in the country of origin? and c) How has the development of new enterprises established by different migrants affected the non-migrant community?
Summary
Return migration is a phenomenon that has emerged in the Albanian context, especially after the 2000s. Some return migrants have invested the financial and social capital accumulated over their migration experience in undertakings that have contributed to economic and social changes in their home country. In addition to economic remittances and 43 | RSC Volume 11, Issue 1, January 2019 diaspora, theoretical approaches consider return migration as a key mechanism of the migration-development nexus, since it contributes through the repatriation of financial capital saved and enhanced human capital (King, Lulle 2016). Whereas Cassarino explains the involvement of returnee entrepreneurs in regional economic development through the theories of return migration, transnationalism and social network (Cassarino 2014), Boccagni (2013) highlights the notion of social remittances as an indicator of the correlation between migrants and the home-country community
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