Diasporic policy, support of short-term stays in country of ancestors and their impact on intensification of ethnic return migration: Diasporic descendants’ immigration from western Ukraine to the Czech Republic1

To a remarkable extent, diasporic descendants may have lost the ethnic consciousness of their ancestors. However, central European countries still provide them preferential immigration policies, and many scholars studying ethnic return migration propose that the benefits derived from these policies and pragmatic acting of diasporic descendants explain the rise and fall of diasporic descendants’ return. Based on research conducted in western Ukraine and the Czech Republic, this article elaborates on how short-term stays in country of ancestors intensify immigration of diasporic descendants. This process is incentivized by financial support of short-term stays in the Czech Republic, reinforced by the Czech government, and it increases the attraction of the Czech environment making participants more willing to utilize their ethnic roots for the purposes of migration. Preferential immigration policies itself could be the leading principle enabling the specific scope of ethnic return migration, but short-term stays in this specific Czech case also influence the decision of diasporic descendants’ regarding immigration.