Return migration, masculinities and the fallacy of reintegration: Ethiopian experiences

The multifaceted notion of ‘returning home,’ and not least the dualities between expectation, anticipation and the realities facing migrants upon their return, is a key component in understanding East African migration dynamics and implications. This article constitutes an exploratory attempt to understand the nexus between return migration journeys, reintegration, psychosocial well-being, and masculinity for the hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian men that migrate every year. Through our empirical findings, we emphasize how fluidity of migration demands a nonlinear interpretation of migratory lives and argue for return migration to be seen not as an outcome or an ending but an unfolding state of being. The traumatic events of irregular Ethiopian migration suggest it becomes an existential journey as much as a physical one. Returning thus should not be seen as a temporary process or journey, but rather an enduring process of personal, mental, and existential change. We ground our argument on analysis of findings of a qualitative study conducted in two sites in Ethiopia, in Arsi zone of Oromia regional state and Addis Ababa, the federal capital.