CAS SEE Seminars with Guests: Robert Pichler

The socioeconomic and cultural development of Southeast Europe has been profoundly shaped by migration processes. In former Yugoslavia since the 1960s, and in Albania since the collapse of the communist regime, migration has become a central feature of social life and individual life trajectories. Migration research on the region has predominantly focused on emigration, and the Balkans are often portrayed primarily as a region marked by the large-scale outmigration of young people. 

Yet migration does not simply imply rupture or detachment. Many migrants maintain close social, emotional, and economic ties to their places of origin and to their families. Remittances continue to constitute a crucial pillar of local and national economies across the region, while ideas and aspirations of return remain deeply embedded in migrant imaginaries and family strategies. 

Historically, return migration formed an integral part of established migration patterns in Southeast Europe. Temporary labour migration, circular mobility, and the expectation of eventual return long shaped both migrant experiences and social structures in the region. In recent decades, however, return has become increasingly difficult to realize and often remains more an aspiration than a concrete social reality. The seminar explores the reasons for this development and its broader social, economic, and cultural consequences for the societies of origin.