Return migration: model(s) of return to the Republic of Croatia

Based on the analysis of relevant scientific and professional literature and statistical data, determine the processes and phenomena of return migration that affect the social, cultural, economic, political and demographic portrait of Croatia. Return migration as an integral part of the migration process is an insufficiently researched scientific field. Some scientists believe that return migration, considering the amount of research interest, is deprived in relation to the process of emigration of the population. Just as there are different individual reasons for emigrating beyond the borders of the homeland, there are also different individual reasons for returning to the homeland. During the migration process, return migrants go through both migration and return experience, which the project team will investigate in the field and whose results will be presented and published during dissemination. Returnee experiences (motivation for return, plans, challenges, etc.) will be analyzed from the position of returnees to Croatia, whereby individual narratives will be contextualized and interpreted in relation to a wider (local, national, transnational) level. All possible characteristics, opportunities and challenges of return migration for local communities and Croatian society will be determined. Previous international research has shown that return migrations are a “potential resource” especially in the economic sector, for the transfer of new knowledge, values, ideas and practices, due to their “multiple benefits”. The implementation of the project is divided into five fundamental phases that are carried out successively, and through them research activities are organized that will be carried out over a period of one year. The dissemination of research results will take place in the context of the national and international scientific community. Public awareness will be of special importance, and will be related to the potential and needs of returnees to Croatia. The dissemination will include the presentation and publication of the scientific paper “Dynamic and structural-demographic characteristics of the population of Croatia in the period 1953-2021” at Macquarie University, which will show and define all migrations, with a special emphasis on return migrations, and the general demographic picture of Croatia in the last about seventy years.