Repopulating European left-behind areas through international roots migration

forthcoming

"Due to the demographic challenges faced by many non-metropolitan areas across Europe, several national, regional, and local governments are promoting policies to attract immigrants with ancestral ties to these places. RepEU-Mig’s main goal is to understand the role of these policies in defying the demographic decline. While their outcomes are sometimes assessed through the evolution of socioeconomic indicators in the places of implementation, little is known about how these policies operate transnationally and how beneficiaries perceive their integration into left-behind places. RepEU-Mig addresses these gaps by comparing recent initiatives in Spain and Italy through an innovative approach that combines multi-level policy and governance analysis with an ethnographic study of the integration experiences of descendants born in Argentina. The objectives are: 1) to analyze and compare the legal content and the narratives that justify contemporary initiatives to attract immigrants with ancestral ties to left-behind places; 2) to examine the process of transnational promotion and implementation of these policies, including the role of various intermediate actors in origin and destination; 3) to better understand individual motivations and their interaction with structural factors that either help or hinder these newcomers’ integration. RepEU-Mig addresses the Key Strategic Orientation D of the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2023-2025, ""Creating a more resilient, inclusive and democratic European society"". The major expected outcomes are: 1) to develop a framework for assessing and comparing national, regional and local policies to attract immigrants with ancestral ties to left-behind areas; 2) to better understand the factors that contribute to migrants’ integration and desire to stay in such areas; 3) to thereby provide evidence-based policy enhancements that contribute to the resilience of these areas and to migrants' well-being. "