Social protection and return migration: trans-national and trans-temporal developmental gaps in the Albania-Greece migration corridor

ABSTRACT

Based on qualitative research with migrants, their children and key informants in Albania, this paper investigates the experiences of return migrants with social protection and their positionality towards social protection stakeholders. Return migration to Albania has intensified in the past few years due to the economic crisis in different European countries where many Albanians have migrated to since the beginning of the 1990s. Findings of multisited fieldwork testify to the centrality of social protection in the process of migrants’ relocation to the country of origin. Due to the trans-national and trans-temporal dimensions of the return process, access to and overall experiences of social protection are mediated by different understandings and regulation of the thresholds of vulnerability, need and welfare held by return migrants, locals, policy makers and service providers. These staggered understandings and thresholds are embedded in an observed trans-national and trans-local developmental gap between the country of immigration and country of origin where migrants relocate to. Resource environment in the context of return is, therefore, characterised by cognitive and material discontinuities at trans-national and trans-temporal level. Experiences of these discontinuities impact on returnees’ social protection strategies and have significant implications for their social and economic positioning upon return to the country of origin.

KEYWORDS:

• Social protection
• return migration
• resource environment
• trans-national
• trans-temporal
• Albania

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Italics added.

2. OECD (2007) https://www.oecd.org/dac/stats/documentupload/DAC%20List%20of%20ODA%20Recipients%202014%20final.pdf.

3. Migration Counters consisted of a desk and one officer as part of the Labor and Migration Offices in each region (35). These counters functioned from 2010 to 2015 to assist the re-integration of the returned Albanian migrants providing free orientation on vocational training, employment opportunities and access to housing and social assistance.

4. http://stats.oecd.org/OECDStatDownloadFiles/OECDSOCX2007InterpretativeGuide_En.pdf.

5. around 60 Euro/month.

6. equivalent to €7, but the salary of a nurse in Albania is approx. €300.

7. A major private TV channel in Albania https://www.vizionplus.tv/.

8. She returned to Albania in 2011, so her 10-year residence card switched to a 6-months permit. This is linked to a lack of proof address in Greece and lengthy periods of time as a non-resident due to her relocation in Albania.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Edge Hill University Research Investment Fund (2013).

Notes on contributors

Zana Vathi

Dr Zana Vathi is Reader in Social Sciences at Edge Hill University, UK. She is the author of Migrating and Settling in a Mobile World (Springer 2015) and numerous articles, working papers and research reports, and the co-editor of Return Migration and Psychosocial Wellbeing: Discourses, Policy-Making and Outcomes for Migrants and their Families (Routledge 2017). Her research focuses on international migration in Europe, cross-generational comparative research, migration policies, migrant trajectories and psychological wellbeing. She serves as an international expert for organizations such as the IOM, World Bank, Terre des Hommes and the European Commission.

Veronika Duci

Dr Veronika Duci is an Associate Professor at the University of Tirana, Department of Social Work and Social Policy. Her main interests are evidence–based social policy, migration, psychosocial wellbeing and quality of life, children, youth and families etc. She has been collaborating, as an expert, with different national and international organizations in relation to these topics.

Elona Dhembo

Dr. Elona Dhembo is a full-time lecturer of research methods and social policy at University of Tirana, from 2005. For five years she was a Returned Scholar under OSI Europe Academic Fellowship Program. More recently (2014-2016), she served as Senior Advisor in evidence-based policy-making for Albania under the Swiss Government supported Regional Research Promotion Program in the Balkan. Her main areas of interest include social research and evidence-based policy-making, gender and social policy, social protection and migration. She has published in Albania and internationally and is an active member of professional networks and civil society agencies.