This article examines the assisted voluntary return and reintegration (AVRR) programmes as a distinct discourse that redefines the governance of the expulsion of irregular migrants. While critical scholarship has largely blurred the line between AVRR and deportation by emphasizing how AVRR masks coercion by using the rhetoric of ‘voluntariness’, this article moves beyond that debate to argue that AVRR’s distinctiveness lies in the production of specific knowledge on expulsion. Drawing on critical discourse analysis (CDA) of key AVRR policy documents and informed by the concept of problematization, the article explores how AVRR reshapes the knowledge and techniques surrounding expulsion and establishes post-expulsion as a problematic domain that requires reintegration interventions. The analysis shows that AVRR policy actors make use of migration management discourse to position itself as a humane, cost-effective, and sustainable alternative to deportation. Three key discursive moves are identified: first, AVRR redefines expulsion as a process involving mutually exclusive interests that needs to address the concerns of all parties involved in the expulsion process; second, it recasts coercive techniques as counterproductive and instead promotes neoliberal tools such as financial incentives and psychosocial counselling; and third, it incorporates reintegration assistance as an essential domain of governance, bringing post-expulsion condition of expelled irregular migrants under the remit of expulsion policy. Yet the article shows that these discursive moves also reveal important limitations, as they remain embedded in existing power asymmetries and ultimately centralize the interests of receiving states over those of countries of origin and irregular migrants.

The mainstreaming of the Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration (AVRR) policy at the global and regional level has led to increased academic attention to the actors implementing it. However, critical research has focused on ‘assisted voluntary return’ practices in host countries during pre-expulsion, giving insufficient attention to post-expulsion dynamics in the countries of citizenship. Addressing this gap, the article examines the work of reintegration actors in Kosovo, where various state and non-state actors provide reintegration services. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of interviews with reintegration actors and drawing on the ‘analytics of government’ framework, the article conceptualises reintegration as a technology of governance that aims to influence the conduct of expelled irregular migrants in the post-expulsion phase. The article finds that reintegration actors understand irregular migration as a product of structural and individual factors, but at the level of interventions, they problematise the perceived individual psychological predispositions towards irregular migration. The analysis further shows how these actors employ psychosocial techniques to promote neoliberal subjectivities that are assumed to deter irregular re-migration while producing ‘proper’ mobile subjects. By centring the practices of reintegration actors, the article extends the spatial and temporal scope of critical scholarship towards the politics underpinning post-expulsion interventions.

In the last three decades, there has been a proliferation of reintegration programmes that aim to assist expelled irregular migrants to reintegrate in their countries of citizenship. While the growing prominence of these programmes has been followed by policy research on the success of reintegration interventions, there has been a lack of critical academic engagement with the politics of reintegration policy and the role that the policy has in the governance of irregular migration. This dissertation addresses this gap by investigating the global discourse that informs reintegration policy, the ambitions of reintegration actors, and the subjectivation effects that reintegration has on expelled irregular migrants in the context of Kosovo, that is promoted as a model for a successful implementation of reintegration policy.

Empirically, the dissertation contributes to critical scholarship on migration management by offering a grounded analysis of how global managerial discourse translates into local policy instruments. Through discourse analysis of policy documents and qualitative interviews with both reintegration actors and expelled migrants in Kosovo, the study demonstrates how reintegration policy draws on migration management logic to constitute post-expulsion as a problematic domain that needs to be governed in order to address the problems associated with expulsion of irregular migrants. While previous research on migration management has emphasized the epistemic and global dimensions of this discourse, this work shifts the focus to its concrete policy enactments and individual-level effects.

Theoretically, the dissertation applies the governmentality framework to conceptualize reintegration policy as a form of productive/governmental power that does not operate through repression but rather through active elicitation of individual aspirations, desires, and agential capacities. In contrast to prevailing approaches that interpret the governance of irregular migration through the lens of sovereign/repressive power, this research interprets reintegration as an instance of a more diffuse and indirect form of control that is interested in inducing changes at the level of subjectivities, rather than merely expelling irregular migrants. Reintegration policy is thus theorized as a technology of power that incorporates expelled migrants into new circuits of regulation, aiming not only to discourage them from irregular re-migration but also to guide them toward ‘proper’ mobility pathways. In addition, the dissertation demonstrates how reintegration discourse and techniques shape the subjectivities of expelled migrant in Kosovo, revealing a spectrum of shifting subjectivities—from resistant irregular migrants subject to sovereign power to entrepreneurial subjects aligned with neoliberal governmentality. It also uncovers forms of resistance, where individuals adopt alternative ethical self-positionings that contest the neoliberal logics embedded in reintegration policies.

By bridging macro-level discursive analyses with meso-level policy instruments and micro-level subjectivities, the dissertation offers an original contribution to critical migration studies and extends the analytical reach of governmentality within migration governance research.

Under de senaste tre decennierna har det skett en ökning av återintegrerings- program som syftar till att hjälpa utvisade irreguljära migranter att återintegreras i sina hemländer. Trots att dessa program har fått ökad uppmärksamhet har det saknats en kritisk akademisk diskussion om återintegreringspolitikens politiska dimension och dess roll i styrningen av irreguljär migration. Denna avhandling fyller denna lucka genom att undersöka den globala diskursen som informerar återintegreringspolitiken, men också aktörernas ambitioner och de subjektiverande effekterna av återintegrering på utvisade irreguljära migranter. Avhandlingen fokuserar på Kosovo, som har framhållits som en modell för framgångsrik återintegreringspolitik.

Empiriskt bidrar avhandlingen till kritisk forskning om migrationsstyrning genom en analys av hur globala styrande diskurser översätts till lokala policyinstrument. Genom diskursanalys av policydokument och kvalitativa intervjuer med både återintegreringsaktörer och utvisade migranter i Kosovo visar studien hur återintegreringspolitiken bygger på migrationsstyrningens logik. En sådan logik avser konstruera post-utvisning som ett problematiskt område, vilket behöver styras för att hantera de problem som är förknippade med utvisning av irregulära migranter. Tidigare forskning om migrationsstyrning har betonat de epistemiska och globala dimensionerna av denna diskurs, medan denna studie skiftar fokus till dess konkreta policygenomförande och dess effekter på individer.

Teoretiskt tillämpar avhandlingen ett governmentality-perspektiv för att konceptualisera återintegreringspolitiken som en form av produktiv/styrande makt. En sådan makt verkar inte genom förtryck utan snarare genom aktivt skapande av individuella aspirationer, önskningar och agenskapaciteter. I kontrast till rådande angreppssätt som tolkar styrningen av irreguljär migration genom linsen av suverän/förtryckande makt, tolkar denna studie återintegrering som ett exempel på en mer diffus och indirekt form av kontroll. Denna form av kontroll ämnar inducera förändringar på subjektivitetsnivå snarare än att enbart utvisa irreguljära migranter. Återintegreringspolitiken teoretiseras således som en ny reglerande maktteknologi som inte enbart avser avskräcka utvisade migranter i från irreguljär återmigration utan också att vägleda dem mot "korrekta" mobilitetsvägar. Dessutom visar avhandlingen hur återintegreringsdiskurs och tekniker formar de utvisade migranternas subjektiviteter i Kosovooch avslöjar ett spektrum av skiftande subjektiviteter. Dessa subjektiviteter sträcker sig från motståndsbenägna irreguljära migranter under suverän makt till entreprenöriella subjekt i linje med neoliberal governmentality. Avhandlingen utforskar också former av motstånd, där individer antar alternativa etiska självpositioneringar som ifrågasätter de neoliberala logikerna inbäddade i återintegreringspolitiken.

Genom att förena makro-nivå diskursanalyser med meso-nivå policyinstrument och mikro-nivå subjektiviteter erbjuder avhandlingen ett originellt bidrag till kritisk migrationsforskning och utvidgar governmentality- analysens räckvidd inom forskningen om migrationsstyrning.