The Peaceful Return of Victims of Forced Displacement (PEACERETURN)

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PEACERETURN focuses on victims of forced displacement and their decisions to return home. Despite the growing consensus among governments, international NGOs, and frequently victims of displacement themselves of the value of peaceful voluntary return, the proportion of actual returnees worldwide has been in significant decline in the past three decades. We know very little about why voluntary return is declining and what leads to partially successful returns or failures. In PEACERETURN, I investigate how displaced persons decide whether to return home or not to return and ask why some return, despite the odds and without reigniting past conflict. In order to understand this complex issue, I will develop a global database of conflict-induced displacements and draw on representative cases around the world to provide generalizable knowledge on the mediation processes, community mobilization efforts and micro-institutional designs more likely to support returnees. I propose a comparative research program that investigates how return is negotiated and implemented in ways that are voluntary, peaceful, and sustainable in seven countries: Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Colombia, Cyprus, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Ukraine representing different stages of return, prohibitive conditions, and outcomes. This multi-method interdisciplinary research will cut across comparative politics, social psychology, and conflict and gender studies, using a combination of archival research, expert interviews, surveys and experiments, citizen-led mediations/simulations, and focused comparisons of case studies. By investigating a central question in refugee studies-why and how some displaced manage to return home-the project will inform regional and global responses to forced migration.