In the EU, the return of rejected asylum seekers and undocumented migrants is used as an instrument to fight irregular migration. As a result, programmes and strategies have been developed which render irregular migrants visible and categorise them to facilitate their return to their countries of origin. However, this chapter illustrates how in the post-return context of Anglophone Cameroon, the socio-cultural notion of bushfalling is used to categorise migrants to determine expectations. At the community level, returnees are judged based on the resources they bring rather than on their legal status abroad. Concentrating on the familial level, return is linked to a sense of restoring family and belonging, which necessitates migrants to seek their families' consent before return. As far as actors in Cameroon's return process are concerned, some migrants are visible in policies and programmes, while others are not. Hence, exploring the labelling processes by different actors illustrates different understandings of return and different labels attached to returnees, rendering some returnees more visible and valued than others.
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Front Matter
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Part I: Approaches and perspectives on irregular migration
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Part II: Aspirations and facilitation of irregular migration
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Part III: Everyday life and (im)mobility
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Part IV: Informal and irregular labour and exploitability
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Part V: Geopolitics and micropolitics of control
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Part VI: Solidarity, advocacy and contestation
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Back Matter
