Diaspora on the move: mobility, multilocality, and economic reintegration in Bulgaria

The economic role of Eastern European diasporas has long been analyzed primarily through the lens of financial remittances. While this literature documents the stabilizing and growth-supportive effects of remittance inflows, it has paid comparatively less attention to the post-return mobilization of skills, savings, and transnational networks, particularly under conditions of sustained multilocal mobility. Drawing on pilot empirical evidence from Bulgaria, this article examines how mobile Bulgarian citizens in the European Union engage economically with their country of origin beyond monetary transfers. The study explores patterns of labor market reintegration, entrepreneurship, investment, and skills application among returnees, as well as the institutional and organizational barriers that mediate these processes. Methodologically, it is based on an exploratory mixed-method design combining a structured survey of 63 Bulgarian returnees with qualitative insights from interviews and short-term ethnographic field observation among mobile Bulgarians in Berlin. The findings reveal a temporal reconfiguration of diaspora economic impact: rather than relying primarily on remittances during migration, returnees mobilize accumulated savings after return, engage in entrepreneurial activity, and maintain transnational connectivity as part of adaptive, multilocal strategies. By conceptualizing return migration as a dynamic and circular process, the article contributes to international debates on migration and development in post-transition and semi-peripheral contexts. It highlights the central role of institutional receptiveness in shaping economic reintegration outcomes and demonstrates that the developmental potential of return migration depends less on individual motivation than on the capacity of domestic institutions to recognize and embed internationally acquired human capital.