Stories as Lived Experience: Narratives in Forced Migration Research

Eastmond, Marita

doi:10.1093/jrs/fem007

Cited by 430 publications

(221 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…In each of these cases, the changes in perspective on the return experiences were strongly linked to changes in their post-return situations and overall wellbeing, whether it was an improvement of their psychosocial wellbeing (Narek: between the situation before return and one year after return; Lilit: between the first and the second year after return) or a decline (Grigor: between the first and the second year after return). This supports Pedersen's (2003) statement that the everyday life-situations and the meanings that returnees themselves attribute to their situation strongly affect how migrants experience their return, illustrating that past experiences are always remembered and interpreted in light of the present (Eastmond 2007).…”

Section: Cross-cutting Themes In Changing Perspectivessupporting

confidence: 80%

“…This, in turn, reinforces the need to avoid the false dichotomy between forced and voluntary return (Turton 2003;Van Hear et al 2009;Vathi and Duci 2016). The renegotiation of return experiences in the light of post-return living situations and previous migration experiences shows how migrants' views of their return experiences can be seen as performative acts (Butler 1993), through which decisions, belonging and the meaning of places and experiences can be reinterpreted and relocated into personal biographies (King and Christou 2010) in order to rationalise and cope with apparent contradictions and make sense of the return experience (Cornish et al 1999;Eastmond 2007). …”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Return Migration and Psychosocial Wellbeing

Vathi¹,

King²

2017

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Section: Cross-cutting Themes In Changing Perspectivessupporting

confidence: 80%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Return Migration and Psychosocial Wellbeing

Vathi¹,

King²

2017

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“…The core of this study consisted of the collection of life histories of returnees, an indepth approach that helped to provide a holistic understanding of the meanings that returnees ascribe to their migration and return experience and helps to go past the over-generalized notions of migration and return that we wanted to overcome (Eastmond, 2007;Findlay & Li, 1997). When telling their life history, people usually present their narrative as having a meaningful and coherent order, marked by key happenings, which can show how they frame and ascribe meaning to their experiences from the perspective of today (Eastmond, 2007).…”

Section: Methodsologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Deconstructing the meanings of and motivations for return: an Afghan case study

Houte

Siegel

Davids

2016

CMS

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Return migration after conflict is the result of a complex decision-making process. However, our understanding of this complexity is blurred by changing politicized understandings of return. In this paper, we compare the autobiographical narratives of return of 'early' and 'late' (post-mid-1990s) arrivals of Afghans who met with changing reception regimes in Europe and returned to Kabul under a wide range of circumstances. We first develop a framework that attempts to understand migration from an actor-based rather than a bureaucratic perspective. We then deconstruct how Afghan migrants made sense of their own return migration, and analyse the ambivalences and seeming contradictions we find in them. The findings show that there are no clear-cut boundaries between voluntary and involuntary return decisions: almost no decision to return was entirely free, as there were legal constraints, family pressure, economic needs or socio-cultural difficulties at the basis of this decision. Almost no return decision was entirely forced, either, as most people did have the choice not to return, however harsh the alternative to returning would have been. At the same time, the analysis shows a strong empirical watershed between the post-return experiences of returnees who continue to have the capacity to be transnationally mobile and the experiences of those who do not. Concluding, we propose to centralize agency over mobility, facilitated by legal status and other factors, in the analysis of return. Concluding, the findings challenge the current policy-oriented binary categories. Alternatively, we propose to centralize the level of agency in decisions of transnational mobility as a more relevant factor in the analysis of return.

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“…Furthermore, when conducting research with refugees, specific ethical consideration must be undertaken as they are vulnerable individuals who were forced to migrate, and they are not in full control of their current situation (Eastmond, 2007). Refugees often have a sense of mistrust of officials within the UK, as they have often had interviews that were hostile in tone, from agencies such as Home Office immigration tribunals and appeal hearings, which felt similar to experiences that had led to fleeing their own country (Hynes, 2003).…”

Section: Ethical Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%