Voluntary Return in Repatriation and Remigration Processes of Migrant Laborers (1960-2000)

• Applicant: Dr. Florian Wagner
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 413222647

This subproject investigates voluntary remigration of migrant workers in Western Europe between 1960 and 2000, focusing on the voluntary return of guest workers from West Germany since the mining crisis of 1958. The very concept of "guest" workers implied their return, with Western Europe pushing for the voluntary nature of remigration in order to maintain its liberal self-image. Its ethnonationalist worldview portrayed migration as unnatural and voluntary return as the norm and a matter of course. The central question is thus to what extent migrant workers subjectivized this dispositif of voluntariness and returned voluntarily, or whether they made voluntary decisions under autonomous migrant conditions. The aim is to find out whether liberal societies governmentally brought about the voluntary return of migrant workers, or whether they made return decisions independently of the host countries’ norm-setting voluntariness. To examine the conditions of voluntary action in remigration processes, the subproject combines postcolonial and governmentality studies. First, a focus on migrant agency helps to explore an independent migrant voluntariness, whose conditioning factors were independent of the host countries’ governmental definitions of voluntariness. Second, we ask to what extent remigration can be voluntary if implicit structures of discrimination condition it, yet without the explicit exercise of coercion. Third, the contrast between autonomy and determination will be resolved by asking to which extent a normative-ethical concept of voluntariness emerged and had governmental or even consensual effects. Each of these three questions examines four conditioning factors of voluntariness in return migration: the "second generation," gender relations, religious norms, and ideals of age and health. By examining postcolonial, governmental, and normative-ethical dimensions of voluntariness, the subproject adopts the questions of the collaborative project and differentiates them with regard to practices and concepts of voluntariness special to migrant. Two articles and a monograph will be the main outcome.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 2983: Freiwilligkeit