Return

"This important volume creates a link between two phenomena that are often treated as oppositional, nation and (trans) nation. Focusing on return migration, the contributors show that space is more than place; it is a method for understanding global movements. The chapters illustrate how generation, class, and often flexible categories (returnee, refugee, and worker) place institutions and the people that they claim to serve in a constantly negotiated relationship. The conversation between scholars of different disciplines will stimulate wide-ranging debate." - Jeffrey Lesser, author of A Discontented Diaspora: Japanese Brazilians and the Meanings of Ethnic Militancy, 1960–1980

"This collection identifies an important patterning of migrations, one exerted by Asian nations pulling far-ranging emigrants and refugees toward home. Different chapters trace the exigency and enigma of return experienced by sojourners and soldiers in the 20th century, and expatriates and professionals in contemporary times. The book will be of interest to scholars working in anthropology, history, sociology, global studies, Asian studies, and critical geography." - Aiwha Ong, coeditor of Asian Biotech: Ethics and Communities of Fate

“This book is an excellent and well-written collection, and it is accessible to students and the educated reader as well as professional academics. Those interested in Asian studies, migration, and human diasporas will want to read it immediately.” - Nobuko Adachi, American Ethnologist

“One of the collection’s strengths, and indeed one of the reasons that an edited volume provides an appropriate means of dealing with the question of return, is that it highlights how the differentiated and segmented relations that Asian states form with returnees require patterns of coalescence, as well as heterogeneity.” - Brett Neilson, Asian Journal of Social Science

“In Return, Xiang, Yeoh, Toyota and eight other contributors offer insightful answers…. By highlighting the complexities of return migration in Asia, this edited volume surely achieves its set goal and constitutes an important contribution to the literature on returnees, refugees and migrants in Asia. Academics, specialists and students will welcome this volume as an important addition to the literature on cultural geography and Asia Studies.” - Kai Chen, Cultural Geographies

“In sum, this volume offers highly readable, provocative critical analyses of return migration that force us to consider how it is regulated, and at what costs. It will be valuable for anyone interested in the complexities of return migration in Asia.” - Glenda S. Roberts, Pacific Affairs

“Return is never just a simple move, as the book editors claim in the introduction and proceed to demonstrate through the different contributions. With return migration only recently emerging as an aspect of migration studies in its own right, this edited collection provides great stimulation for generating ideas of return migration in an advanced and multifaceted way. The book is highly recommended for students of the social sciences, in particular those concerned with mobility, migration, and nation-building.” - Brigitte Suter, Border Criminologies

“On the surface, the study of migration is about mobility, yet it tends generally to be about its states of arrest, usually in the presumed destination country. Prefixes for migration like ‘circular,’ ‘seasonal,’ and ‘temporary’ do little to disturb this norm. Return: Nationalizing Transnational Mobility in Asia is refreshing for this reason. Its subject is transnational mobility rather than migration in the conventional linear sense. … On the whole, this volume hangs together well. Readers of Transfers will especially appreciate the renewed focus on nation and national policies that these essays, albeit in different ways, bring to discussions of mobility.”  - Gopalan Balachandran, Transfers

“Without a doubt, this will be a much quoted piece and will foreground many stimulating conversations on the return process. Migration scholars, policy advisers, program implementers, and donor agencies can greatly benefit from making this book a useful tool in analyzing how migrants and nation-states respond to the challenges of return.” - Jean Encinas-Franco, Asian Politics & Policy