Transformative effects of intra-European mobility for the young Croatian returnees: intangible capital, life satisfaction and optimism for the future

Abstract:
The lecture examines recent patterns of migration and return mobility among Croatian citizens, with a particular focus on returnees who lived in the European Union member states following Croatia’s accession to the European Union in 2013. Drawing on qualitative methodology, specifically open-ended semi-structured interviews with return migrants, the study deepens existing understandings of the circumstances and reasons for their mobility, both at the time of departure and upon returning to the country. With its transformative effects, the recent intra-European mobility acts as a kind of rite of passage or formative mobility on those who experience it. This transformation is evident in the informal human and psychological capital migrants acquired during their stay abroad. Among other, they return with new values, perspectives, and aspirations, expressing satisfaction regarding life in the cities in which they live and optimism for future development of Croatia.

Bio:
Jasna Čapo, PhD is a Fellow of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (Department of Social Sciences) and a Senior Research Advisor at the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research in Zagreb. Her research interests have ranged from historical demography and family history in the 18th and 19th century Croatia, traditional culture in rural Croatia at the turn of the 20th century to refugee issues at the end of the 20th century and contemporary forms of transnational migration and return mobilities among Croats. She has written books on each of these topics. Two monographs were translated and published in USA and Germany: Strangers either way: the lives of Croatian refugees in their new home (2007/2011 New York-Oxford, Berghahn Books); Zwei Zuhause: Kroatische Arbeitsmigration nach Deutschland als transnationales Phänomen (2022, Berlin, Peter Lang). Currently she is finishing a monograph on return migration to Croatia since the 1990s.
 
Recommended readings:

• Čapo, J. (2024). Introduction: Meandering Through Return Migration and Its Effects, In: J. Čapo, R. Dimova & L. Jusufi (eds.). Return Migration and its Consequences in Southeast Europe. Berlin: Peter Lang, Südosteuropa-Jahrbuch 47, 11-33.
• Dzieglewski, M. (2016). Return Migration and Social Change in Poland: ‘Closures’ to Migrants’ Non-Economic Transfers. Central and Eastern European Migration Review 5 (2): 167-188. (Open Access).
• Gemi, E. & Triandafyllidou, A. (2021). Rethinking Migration and Return in Southeastern Europe: Albanian Mobilities to and from Italy and Greece. London: Routledge (Open Access).