COVID-19 return migration phenomena: experiences from South and Southeast Asia

Abstract

Academic interest for the scholarship on return migration has received new vigour owing in part to the massive return migration waves observed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This special issue consolidates studies conducted in the aftermath of COVID-19 that study return migration experiences from South and Southeast Asia. These studies harness primary as well as secondary data in order to document what happened to migrants as a result of lockdowns and related measures of immobility, the flow of migrants when borders reopened, and the condition since return to their countries of origin. Despite the fact that we draw from the context of the pandemic-induced return migration phenomena, the insights generated by our special issue are important for the scholarship of return migration at large.