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Following the ceasefire signed in Sri Lanka in 2002 return of international migrants, refugees and Internally Displaced Persons became more of a possibility. The readmission agreement signed between the government of Sri Lanka and the European Commission in June 2004 and the decision of UNDP to extend the TOKTEN programme (Transfer Of Knowledge Through Expatriate Nationals) to Sri Lanka at the same time means that return will now be encouraged and facilitated by significant international institutions. Return migration has significant potential to encourage economic development of areas to which migrants return. Little is known, however, about the relationship between different types of return and there has been almost no sustained research on the development of the post-return situation of return migrants. Given the existence of conditions likely to encourage return and the necessity to establish durable development, Sri Lanka provides an ideal opportunity to investigate these questions. The fellow will be based at the University of Colombo for the two-year outgoing phase of the project. In depth surveys and interviews will be carried out with the support of students of the department of sociology. The project aims to establish the basis for a longitudinal re search project that can continue to collect data on the development of return migration to Sri Lanka and monitor the sustainability of this movement and the effects of policy interventions.
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