LEGAL ARCHITECTURE AS A DETERMINANT OF MIGRANTS’ RESILIENCE: THE CASE OF HIGHLY SKILLED RETURN MIGRANTS IN TÜRKİYE

Date

2024-5

Author

Şenel, Gülece

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With the increase in the number of countries competing for attracting skilled labour force and the wider acceptance of the potential diasporas have in terms of human capital, encouraging return among highly skilled emigrants has become an important policy objective for sending states. Home states’ return laws and policies regard this category of emigrants as assets, focus on facilitating their return through diverse schemes such as higher salaries or lower taxes; but remain mostly silent on their re-integration. These laws and policies are built on an implicit assumption that highly skilled emigrants constitute a homogeneous group, whose members are ready to contribute to their home countries with their know-how, skills, and networks. They are resilient, self-sufficient individuals, who can adopt to changes easily, with no need for state support. This study embraces a critical stance at this assumption. Focusing on the case of highly skilled returnees in Turkey, this research aims to shed a light on the question “How do home states’ legal architectures governing return migration relate to returnees’ resilience?” Through a comprehensive analysis of laws, policies, international and bilateral agreements, Türkiye’s legal architecture on highly skilled return migration is presented. To uncover the relationship between legal architecture and resilience and reintegration experiences of highly skilled returnees, 45 semi-structured interviews were conducted. The findings indicate that reintegration, particularly psychological reintegration is an overlooked aspect in the legal architecture. Moreover, contrary to the widely held assumption, highly skilled migrants also have vulnerabilities, to which return laws and policies should pay attention.

Subject Keywords

Highly Skilled Migration, Return Migration, Reintegration, Resilience, Türkiye

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/109854

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis