Most official institutions involved with refugees perceive repatriation as the most durable solution to the global refugee problem. If the policy of repatriation is to succeed, the view of the refugees with regard to the policy must be an important consideration. One of the complexities that repatriation policy does not seem to acknowledge is the changes and experiences that the refugees have undergone after many years in exile, in quite a few individual cases amounting to several decades. Whether refugees choose to return or not is the outcome of multiple and complex political, economic and social issues that continuously change and shift. This is because once people flee and settle elsewhere for a lengthy period of time they undergo changes in terms of identity, life style, frames of reference and social position. Moreover, return of refugees to their countries of origin after the elimination of the circumstances that prompted them to flee has to do with the political changes that have taken place in their area of origin, but also with intersecting factors linked to the country of asylum.

In this study, Sadia Hassanen allows her respondents to speak and to tell their stories that reveal the effect of migration as well as the possibilities associated with migration. Moreover, the author makes clear that deciding to return or not is a complex multi-faceted experience that needs to be studied by bringing together the sociocultural and political aspects of country of origin and destination. She analyses decision-making among Eritrean refugees and provides some general insights to the on-going debate about the notions of home, transnationalism, citizenship, integration and return migration. Thus, this book is a contribution to the understanding of the meaning of borders, the notion of home and the significance of political, social and economic matters to return migration.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sadia Hassanen is a researcher at the Centre for Research in International Migration and Ethnic Relations (CEIFO) at Stockholm University. She has a BA in social sciences with a major in sociology and a masters degree from the Umeå International School of Public Health. Before being enrolled to the PhD programme in human geography, she worked at the academic hospital in Uppsala as a researcher. This book is her doctoral thesis in human geography.