Migrant Agency and the Country of Origin in the Return Regime. The Case of State-Induced Return from Germany to The Gambia

This dissertation investigates the contested field of return migration through the lens of migrant agency and transnational migratory and political dynamics between Germany and The Gambia. It focuses on state-induced return – deportation and Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration (AVRR) – and the socio-political reconfigurations it triggers for migrants and the country to which they (potentially) return. The study is motivated by two interlinked developments: first, the increasing political and administrative efforts of European states and Germany in particular to enforce return, and second, the shift in political opportunity structures in origin countries, for example when undergoing democratic transition. The case of The Gambia, following the fall of long-term dictators Yahya Jammeh in 2016, offers a critical context in which these developments converge. The dissertation addresses the overarching research question: How do migrants facing state-induced return develop and navigate socio-political agency in the transnational migration regime? It explores (1) which forms of migrant agency emerge in the face of state-induced return; (2) how migrants position themselves vis-à-vis the institutional, discursive, and practical configurations of the return regime; and (3) how these migrant positions influence political dynamics in The Gambia. The study thereby seeks to recentre return migration studies on the post-return context and to foreground the agency of migrants and origin-state actors within transnational migration governance. Theoretically, the study draws on a power-sensitive migration regime perspective, further developed through insights from structuration theory, especially Margaret Archer’s distinction between primary and corporate agency. It integrates debates on return voluntariness, development, and political remittances, while also critically engaging with the dominant policy paradigm of reintegration. Conceptually, the dissertation proposes the notion of the return regime that is distinct from migration regimes and deportation regimes as it incorporates post-return dynamics and their entanglements with development cooperation, origin-state politics, and multi-sited migrant activism. Empirically, the study is based on a longitudinal, multi-sited qualitative case study of return migration between Germany and The Gambia. Data were collected through over 115 qualitative interviews with migrants, state and other administrative actors, and civil society representatives in both countries. The core of the empirical research includes follow-up interviews with migrants who returned from Germany via deportation or AVRR over a 2.5-year period, complemented by participant observation, document analysis, and media materials. This temporal approach allows the dissertation to trace evolving trajectories of return and capture the ways in which migrants navigate or contest their returns within the regime over time, and how changing political dynamics shape their positionings. The case of The Gambia is analytically significant due to the simultaneity of democratic transition and intensified return enforcement by Germany. It provides a ‘crucial case’ to test competing claims within the return-development nexus and to examine how origin-state sovereignty is negotiated under conditions of geopolitical asymmetry. The study identifies moments of corporate migrant agency both before and after return, including a high-profile deportation moratorium enacted by the Gambian government following transnational migrant protest. At the same time, the research reveals limited transformative agency among migrants returned from Germany themselves, many of whom struggle with stigma, economic hardship, and exclusion despite reintegration assistance. The dissertation consists of a cumulative body of five academic publications. These address (1) the differentiated political influence of two specific groups of migrants; (2) trajectories after state-induced return and the identification of AVRR as ‘slow deportation’; (3) the transnational political remittances of migrants’ anti-deportation activism; (4) the notion of ‘protective exclusion’ through the Gambian state as a postcolonial sovereignty strategy; and (5) methodological and ethical reflections on longitudinal post-deportation research. These are synthesized in this framework paper and discussed in the shared contexts of migrant agency, development, and the return regime. Overall, the dissertation challenges the normative assumptions embedded in return and reintegration policies. It demonstrates how migrant agency is shaped by structural constraints, how origin states navigate conflicting pressures in migration cooperation, and how return is not simply the closure of migration but a deeply politicized and contested constant in the return regime. By repositioning return migration as a transnational field of struggle, the study advances regime theory, contributed to critical migration and development research, and opens new avenues for postcolonial engagement with migration governance.