Sociological approach in the research of processes of returning migrations

ABSTRACT IN ENGLISH: In this work the author first discusses the possibility of an appropriate sociological theoretical concept for defining the term returning migration, starting from the model of the collective-identification field of migrants as a social group, conceptualised by S. Meznaric. The theory of B.I. Reynes which integrates four approaches to the research of returning migrations is also presented: the theory of unfulfilled goals, the theory of circular migrations, the theory of planned earnings and the theory of social network, which proved appropriate in operationalising the indicators for researching returning migrations. The goal was to determine whether returned migrants were a social group in the sociological sense and which characteristics placed them in the same collective-identification field. The initial hypothesis was that returning migrations include the entirety of the migrant's experience: the experience of migration, the experience of adjustment to the new environment by means of the processes of integration (acculturation and assimilation) and the experience of returning and adjusting to the 'old' environment, i.e. the experience of reintegration into the country of origin, which makes the returned migrants or returnees a social group with similar characteristics and experiences. The results of research show that returnees, regardless of which country they return from, which generation they belong to, regardless of the length of time they spent in emigration or which social class they belong to as well as the extent they have been more successfully professionally socialised and economically adapted to life in a market economy. This experience is perhaps the most important socio-cultural characteristic that has influenced their different outlook on the reconstruction of capitalism in Croatia, which indeed makes them a group of the same social-identification field. // ABSTRACT IN GERMAN: In diesem Artikel wird zunächst ein mögliches soziologisches Konzept untersucht, das für die Bestimmung des Begriffs Rückwanderung geeignet wäre. Dabei müsste dem Modell der kollektiven Identifikation von Migranten als einer Bevölkerungsgruppe, wie S. Meznaric dies konzeptualisiert hat, Rechnung getragen werden. Dem Leser wird auch die Theorie von B. I. Reyes präsentiert, der bei seiner Untersuchung des Rückwanderungsphänomens vier Ansätze integriert. Das sind: die Theorie der unerreichten Ziele, die Rundwanderungs-Theorie, die Theorie des geplant