Gender, Return Migration, and Reconfigurations of Social Relations in Lubumbashi: Between Structural Vulnerabilities and Power Shifts

This article examines the gendered effects of return migration on social relations in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), through an interdisciplinary framework combining International Relations and sociology. Drawing on fieldwork conducted between January and May 2025 with a random sample of 120 Congolese return migrants from South Africa and their associated households, the study explores how return migration reshapes structural vulnerabilities and power relations within urban households. Theoretically, the analysis integrates perspectives from migration governance and human security with sociological approaches to gender relations and domestic power structures, highlighting the tensions between international gender equality norms, national institutional constraints, and local social realities. Empirical findings show that return migration does not simply restore pre-migration social arrangements, nor does it follow a linear reintegration trajectory. Instead, it generates ambivalent dynamics in which the relative economic and symbolic empowerment of some women intersects with the persistence—and in some cases reinforcement—of patriarchal norms, particularly in contexts of urban economic insecurity and informality.