Every year, fewer displaced people return home voluntarily, and no one knows why. PEACERETURN investigates this puzzle by studying how victims of forced displacement decide whether to go back to their places of origin, and why some returns succeed peacefully while others fail or reignite conflict. The researcher will build a global database of conflict-induced displacements and examine seven countries—Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Colombia, Cyprus, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Ukraine—at different stages of return. The work combines archival research, surveys, experiments, and citizen-led simulations to understand the mediation processes, community efforts, and local institutional designs that support returnees. This matters because governments and international NGOs increasingly agree that voluntary return is valuable, yet the proportion of actual returnees has declined sharply over three decades. If successful, the project could inform regional and global policies on forced migration, helping agencies design interventions that make return safer and more sustainable. The research is primarily curiosity-driven—it asks a fundamental question about human behaviour under extreme stress—but its findings could reshape how humanitarian organisations and governments approach one of the world’s most pressing displacement crises.
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PEACERETURN focuses on victims of forced displacement and their decisions to return home. Despite the growing consensus among governments, international NGOs, and frequently victims of displacement themselves of the value of peaceful voluntary return, the proportion of actual returnees worldwide has been in significant decline in the past three decades. We know very little about why voluntary return is declining and what leads to partially successful returns or failures. In PEACERETURN, I investigate how displaced persons decide whether to return home or not to return and ask why some return, despite the odds and without reigniting past conflict. In order to understand this complex issue, I will develop a global database of conflict-induced displacements and draw on representative cases around the world to provide generalizable knowledge on the mediation processes, community mobilization efforts and micro-institutional designs more likely to support returnees. I propose a comparative research program that investigates how return is negotiated and implemented in ways that are voluntary, peaceful, and sustainable in seven countries: Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Colombia, Cyprus, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Ukraine representing different stages of return, prohibitive conditions, and outcomes. This multi-method interdisciplinary research will cut across comparative politics, social psychology, and conflict and gender studies, using a combination of archival research, expert interviews, surveys and experiments, citizen-led mediations/simulations, and focused comparisons of case studies. By investigating a central question in refugee studies-why and how some displaced manage to return home-the project will inform regional and global responses to forced migration.
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