Doctoral Dissertation Research: Agricultural Drivers of Return Migration

回移，即移徙者返回原籍，是移徙生命周期的一个常见终点。虽然许多工作都集中在远离家乡的移民的原因，但很少有工作集中在了解是什么驱使人们在离开一段时间后返回家乡。因此，回移提供了一个重要的窗口，让我们了解从物质到象征的不同因素如何促使人们建造家园。本博士论文研究项目的重点是农业返回移民揭示的因素，激励家庭在经济落后地区。除了支持培训美国-该项目以科学文化人类学博士生为基础，向学术界、政策界和一般受众广泛传播成果。这是一个多地点的民族志研究的前移民都在家里和散居地。研究人员在包括市政府、教堂和农场在内的农村社区中心进行访谈和参与观察，以调查激励返回的因素以及这些因素在不同人群中变得突出的条件。这些调查结果的补充，围绕农村移民和土地使用的政治辩论的文本分析，以及图像分析的多媒体材料，由移民自己制作的，因为他们记录他们的努力，以重新融入家乡。这项研究进一步深化了人类学理论，即社会和经济汇款如何塑造社区，特别是人口流动如何改变城市和农村之间的关系，并改变农村生活和环境的发展。因此，这项研究提供了一个框架，重新考虑移民与发展之间的关系，考虑到农村生活的特点，这些特点对居住在那里的人来说很重要，其中可能包括经济因素，但不一定限于这些因素。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

Return migration, when migrants return to their original homes, is a common endpoint in the migration life cycle. Whereas much work has focused on the causes of migration away from home, less work has been focused on understanding what drives people to return home following stints away. Return migration thus offers an important window into understanding how the making of home is motivated by different factors, from material to symbolic. This doctoral dissertation research project focuses on agrarian return migration to shed light on factors that motivate home-making in economically disadvantaged regions. In addition to supporting the training of a U.S.-based doctoral student in scientific cultural anthropology, this project disseminates results broadly to academic, policy, and general audiences. This is a multi-sited ethnographic study of former migrants both at home and in the diaspora. The researchers engage in interviews and participant observation in rural community centers, including municipal governments, churches, and farms, to investigate the factors that motivate return and the conditions under which those factors become salient for different populations. These findings are complemented by textual analysis of political debates around rural migration and land use as well as image analysis of multimedia materials produced by migrants themselves as they document their efforts to reintegrate at home. This research furthers anthropological theory about how social and economic remittances shape communities, especially how the movement of people alters the relation between cities and countrysides and transforms the development of rural life and environments. As such, this research provides a framework for reconsidering the migration-development nexus by accounting for features of rural life that are important to the people who reside there, which may include economic factors but are not necessarily limited to them.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.