#3388. No place like home? The International Organization for Migration and the new political imaginary of deportation

October 2026publication date
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Journal’s subject area:
Demography;
Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous);
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Abstract:
Programmes to encourage the return of migrants living with irregular status are prominent in many OECD countries. Bearing titles like ‘assisted voluntary return and reintegration’ (AVRR), they are often rationalized as a more humane alternative to forced deportation. Focusing on the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a leading architect of AVRR, we insist scholars take seriously the visual images and narratives through which voluntary return is discursively constructed. First, we discuss the political imaginary, and clarify what this concept brings to deportation studies. Second, we present a mapping of the political imaginary of deportation as this appears within IOM information campaigns concerning AVRR. We organize this material i­n terms of three analytics: returnees as activists, return journeys as homecoming, and deportation as self-reinvention. We show that IOM reimagines the landscape of deportation in a positive light.
Keywords:
Deportation; migration; political imaginary; voluntary return policy

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