ABSTRACT
Diaspora strategising has become a popular policy option for migrant-sending states that seek to engage their diasporas and channel the benefits of migration back to the country of origin. State agendas to promote return migration can also be implemented through diaspora strategies that seek to strengthen the national loyalty of migrants, induce return, prepare migrants for return, and mobilise the resource of returnees. This chapter examines three manifestations of ‘return’ migration in Asia: first, labour migrants in unskilled and semi-skilled work; second, highly skilled and capital-bearing migrants; and third, diasporic descendants who re-migrated to the ancestral land. The chapter discusses re-migration patterns that complicate policies premised on the view that emigration and return migration function as linear journeys, resulting in immigrant settlement elsewhere or permanent resettlement once returnees move back to the country of origin. The chapter also considers the different modalities of diaspora engagement found in selected Asian countries.
