'It takes courage to return': West African migrants making sense of (In)voluntary return from Morocco amid adventure, failure and destiny

This paper examines how young West African migrant men decide to enrol in the IOM's voluntary return programme in Morocco and make sense of their return while they wait for it to happen. Through an ethnographic exploration of migrants' affective and moral economy of mobility, it shows that choosing to return is not a single event but a process that implies self-doubt, family negotiations, daunting emotions such as shame, and the need to find the meaning of a migratory project often interrupted in dramatic circumstances. The narrative of adventure and the belief in destiny offer meaning to return, but they are themselves subject to conflicting interpretations, justifying onward migration or return in terms of pride, resilience or failure. By validating, reinterpreting or rejecting return, would-be returnees struggle to exercise some autonomy, however fragile and interstitial, vis-& agrave;-vis the constraints weighing on their (in)voluntary decision. During this complex personal process, most returnees' experience of the IOM's return programme is limited to administrative matters. Although the IOM commits to migrant-centred response, the daily implementation of the return procedure falls short of engaging with returnees' circumstances, remaining peripheral to the challenges that (in)voluntary returning entails.