Disentangling return migration in a mixed-methods study. The multi-dimensional dynamic behind aspiration and capability of secondary onward or backward migration

Human Migration Studies have grown rapidly in recent decades and have significantly enhanced interdisciplinarity, internationalization and heterogeneity of theoretical and analytical frameworks. Beside the first migration, the exploration of migrants’ secondary mobility has become a cornerstone of Migration Studies, exploring onward movements or the voluntary and permanent return to the origin country. The main purpose of this doctoral thesis is understanding if, why and how a return migration intention is formed, contributing to three main domains of return migration’s knowledge: theoretical, methodological and analytical. The idea is providing a thorough interpretation of a complex migration subprocess in a multi-method analysis’ design. I first explore the evolution of scientific research on the topic, of its structures of knowledge, of its paradigms and conceptualizations. Second, I adopt and compare different empirical methods, from computational linguistic and text mining to explorative narrative biographies’ reviewing, to factors’ predictive power modelling on mobility intentions in quantitative survey settings. Third, the study focuses on different categories of migrants and migration drivers, combining subjective and objective aspects’ exploration and integrating micro, meso and macro level perspective. I privilege the recent theoretical framework of mobility “aspiration and capability” to explore return migration decision-making. the framework suites the purpose of combining all the intended layers of analysis, shedding light on possibilities and realties of return. It highlights the tensions between mindsets, perceived spatial opportunities and constraints behind mobility behaviours in different life trajectories and biographies. And most importantly, the aspiration capability framework allows to consider different degree of voluntariness in first and return migration, considering migrants as agents and understanding mobility or immobility from the point of view of migrants.