The double return experience: rationale for return from Canada to Ghana and Ghana to Canada

ABSTRACT

What motivates Ghanaian migrants who return from Canada, with the intention to settle permanently in Ghana, to move back to Canada? This study answers this question by exploring the lived experiences of Ghanaian migrants involved in double return migration. Using semi-structured interviews with Ghanaian migrants residing in the Greater Toronto Area, the paper demonstrates the complexity of a double return (return to Ghana and second return to Canada). First, participants identified patriotism, attachment to their homeland, opportunity to contribute to the socio-economic development of their homeland, and employment challenges in Canada as reasons for returning home. Second, participants explained that poor business environment, children’s integration challenges, and social networks and familial ties in the receiving society informed their decision to return to Canada. The results demonstrate a need for sustainable reintegration policies in the receiving and sending societies to enable migrants and returnees to successfully integrate in both contexts.

RÉSUMÉ

Qu’est-ce qui motive les immigrés ghanéens qui repartent du Canada avec l’intention de s’installer définitivement au Ghana à revenir vivre au Canada ? Cette étude répond à cette question en explorant les expériences vécues par les immigrés ghanéens impliqués dans la migration à double retour. À l’aide d’entretiens semi-structurés avec des immigrés ghanéens résidant dans le Grand Toronto, l’article démontre la complexité du double retour (retour au Ghana et second retour au Canada). Tout d’abord, les participants ont cité le patriotisme, l’attachement à leur pays d’origine, la possibilité de contribuer au développement socio-économique de leur pays d’origine et les difficultés d’emploi au Canada comme autant de raisons de rentrer chez eux. Ensuite ils ont expliqué que la médiocrité de l’environnement commercial, les difficultés d’intégration des enfants, ainsi que les réseaux sociaux et les liens familiaux dans la société d’accueil ont motivé leur décision de revenir au Canada. Les résultats démontrent la nécessité de politiques durables de réintégration dans les sociétés d’accueil et d’origine pour permettre aux immigrés et aux rapatriés de s’intégrer avec succès dans les deux contextes.

KEYWORDS:

• Ghanaian migrants
• double return migration
• transnationalism
• Canadian immigration
• integration

MOTS-CLÉS:

• immigrés ghanéens
• migration de double retour
• transnationalisme
• immigration canadienne

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 “Receiving society” refers to the country that immigrants have moved to and in which they intend to settle. It is used synonymously with “destination country.”

2 “Homeland” in this article refers to immigrants’ country of birth, from which they migrated to their destination abroad. It is used interchangeably with “sending country.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Emmanuel Kyeremeh

Emmanuel Kyeremeh is a social geographer who identifies as a mixed-method, theoretically informed social scientist. His areas of research interest include immigrant integration, social networks, transnationalism, return migration, immigrant health, and gender and migration. His primary research focuses on the role of personal networks in the integration process of immigrants, specifically African immigrants in Canada.

Senanu Kwasi Kutor

Senanu Kwasi Kutor is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. His research interests span migration, immigrants’ integration, transnationalism, subjective well-being and health, families left behind, geographies of wisdom, and urban informality in cities of the developing world.

Eunice Annan-Aggrey

Eunice Annan-Aggrey is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada. Her research interests include international development, the Sustainable Development Goals, local governance, gender equality, poverty reduction and environmental sustainability.

Ismahan Yusuf

Ismahan Yusuf is a Somali Canadian feminist geographer, based at the University of Western Ontario. Her research explores the relationship between power, positionality and place – specifically as negotiated by Black Muslim women in public space. She engages intersectionality and Black feminist methodologies to understand the spatial lives of Black Muslims and the ways in which they dovetail as well as diverge in settler landscapes.

Godwin Arku

Godwin Arku is a professor in the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada. His research interests include development issues, policy analysis, regional and local economic development policy and planning, urban development and immigrants’ integration.