Communicating Assisted Voluntary Return (AVR): Examining tensions in discursive practice

Assisted Voluntary Return (AVR) programmes are resettlement packages offered to asylum seekers and undocumented migrants (people in the UK without legal papers) to aid return to their countries of origin. These programmes are funded by the UK government and the EU; they are organised by the UK Home Office. AVR programmes, particularly those in the UK, have attracted significant criticism: academics, practitioners and stakeholders have questioned whether return can be labelled as 'voluntary' when many people applying for AVR have had a negative asylum decision or are undocumented. As such, they have little choice but to return.
My research sought to understand how inequality occurred and was challenged within AVR programmes by focusing on two central elements of AVR: 1) the voluntary aspect of the return and 2) clients' opportunities to make informed decisions about their return. I analyse institutional AVR publications and interviews with AVR staff from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and Refugee Action, the two former providers of AVR in the UK.
By analysing the institutional leaflets and brochures about AVR from both organisations, I show how people applying for AVR are represented differently by each institution. Detailed analysis of language reveals how sometimes people are represented as having a choice about going home; other times people are represented as having few other legitimate options. I discuss how this is significant when labelling the programmes as 'voluntary' and consider the implications. I conclude that representing people as having a choice about return when many feel they do not, might contribute to the problem of widespread distrust around AVR.
By interviewing staff, I show how many staff members challenged the use of the term 'voluntary', demonstrating that within the workforce there are wide-ranging views over what AVR is, and what service they are or should be providing. I show how staff legitimised their work in this controversial area by focusing on 'voluntary' as meaning giving impartial (non-coercive) advice and foregrounding their work in advocating for AVR applicants.
AVR applicants come from all over the world and speak, read and write many different languages - and to different degrees of competence. AVR staff members are responsible for ensuring that applicants have made 'an informed decision' about their return. This is particularly important because the very act of applying for AVR can negatively affect someone's asylum application (whether they decide to actually go through with AVR or not). In my research I focus on how staff members describe achieving this with the linguistic resources provided by IOM and Refugee Action. In considering how AVR applicants have the opportunity to make an informed decision, I show how staff deal with institutional approaches to diversity. I demonstrate how there is a wide spectrum of responses to this situation and how staff members are resourceful in challenging linguistic inequality and building ad hoc communicative strategies into the administrative process in order to enhance applicants' opportunities to access information about - and prepare for - return.
In applying for this fellowship, I aim to share, publish and expand upon my research findings. In doing so, I hope to develop my research, professional and networking skills and establish myself as an independent researcher in the field of institutional communication, focusing on multilingualism and diversity. The objectives of this fellowship are: to disseminate information by attending conferences in the fields of linguistics and migration; to publish papers in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes; to develop my academic and professional networks; to work with AVR practitioners and stakeholders, and feedback findings to AVR staff.