(iPoster) A Safe Return? Measuring Violence/Human Rights Abuses against Returned Migrants

• In Event: Poster Session: Conflict Processes 1

Abstract

While refugee return is often promoted by host countries and intergovernmental organizations as a durable solution to refugee crises, it does not always mark the end of displacement or instability. Successful reintegration is essential to ensuring safe and sustainable returns, as mass returnees can exacerbate resource competition and identity-based tensions between returnees and stayees. The lack of sustainable reintegration can exacerbate existing tensions, including long-standing identity-based conflicts, and create new grievances between returnees and stayees in conflict-affected regions, thereby increasing the likelihood of communal violence and undermining social cohesion. I argue that the violence refugees endure, both the violence that compelled their displacement and that experienced in host communities, significantly shapes their post-return reintegration. I hypothesize that returnees who faced violence before and during displacement are more likely to be welcomed by stayees in conflict zones, as shared traumatic experiences foster a sense of solidarity and reduce tensions associated with refugee return, thereby mitigating the risk of communal violence. However, humanitarian aid aimed at facilitating return and reintegration can unintentionally generate resentment and exacerbate tensions between stayees and returnees, potentially undermining social cohesion. I test these expectations using data from IOM’s Integrated Location Assessment (ILA) Surveys, Rounds II (2018) to V (2020), in post-ISIS Iraq and find robust support for my hypotheses.

Author

• Zhejun Qiu, University of Pittsburgh