Governing Mobility from the Margins: How Peripheral Localities Manage Migration

This draft paper draws on my ongoing research on return migration, diaspora engagement, and local development in Albania to examine how migration is increasingly governed in non-urban and peripheral contexts. Albania’s introduction of Local Action Plans for Migration and Diaspora (PLVMD) offers a unique opportunity to explore how local governments—especially those affected by continuous out-migration, ageing populations, and shrinking labour markets—interpret and translate new responsibilities into practice. Peripherality is understood here not only as geographic distance, but as a condition shaped by demographic loss, limited institutional capacity, fragmented governance structures, and weak forms of state presence—all themes that recur in my previous fieldwork and engagement with local communities. A comparative reading of several PLVMDs shows that municipalities articulate ambitious goals: strengthening reintegration pathways, building more systematic data collection, engaging diaspora networks, and integrating migration into local development agendas. Yet these aims contrast with everyday realities I have encountered in peripheral Albanian communities—where administrative capacities are stretched, coordination mechanisms remain uneven, and trust between institutions and citizens is fragile. The paper explores these dynamics through three research questions: 1. How do peripheral municipalities in Albania interpret and operationalise newly assigned responsibilities in migration governance? 2. Which local social, demographic, and institutional conditions shape the implementation of these plans? 3. How does the decentralisation of migration responsibilities reshape local governance practices and alter centre–periphery relations in Albania? By grounding the analysis in Albania’s specific migration history and my broader research on returnees, transnational practices, and local governance, the paper argues that peripheral municipalities are becoming important—but often overlooked—actors in shaping how mobility is governed. Their experiences reveal not only new opportunities for linking migration and development, but also the everyday tensions and constraints that emerge when ambitious policy frameworks reach the margins of the state.