The Impacts of Migration on Civic Participation and Global Engagement

This research project investigates what factors contribute to enhancing civil society participation and collective identity formation among recently returned labor migrants. The researchers employ a multi-sited, longitudinal approach to track the long-term impacts of migration trajectories on civic participation of migrants who return to their home countries. This longitudinal approach strengthens the understanding of how civil society and migrant reintegration can be understood globally. The systematic, scientific study of how different migration experiences and migrant trajectories can impact the formation of new civic participation and the social and political empowerment of migrants who return home expands an understanding of the dynamics of the role migration plays in building a global civil society. The broader impacts of this project provide training in anthropological science and methods to undergraduate students at the researcher's home institution and to a team of local researchers and students at the research sites. Research results are made available to both local organizations and international organizations with recommendations for migration policy and migration management. The investigators use a combination of in-depth ethnography and social network analysis to understand the connections between migration, return-migration and civic participation. They test for the impacts of various factors involved in how return migrants build civic participation networks over time in their home countries. This research makes significant contributions to the anthropology of migration, globalization, migration policy. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.