The seeds to compile a volume on the role and the meaning of return in the lives of migrants and transnationals were planted during a panel at the joint ICAS AAS conference held in Honolulu between March 31 and April 3, 2011. The initial aim of the panel was to revisit the ‘myth of return’ in light of the transnational turn in migration studies. We soon started discussing what ‘return’ actually means to (transnational) migrants and whether it was possible to give the ‘question of return’ a more central place in our research. The chapters in this volume all engage with what the ‘question of return’ means to (groups of) migrants and how it influences their (daily) lives and lifestyles. I would like to thank all authors for their contributions to this volume.

Over the period of time it took for this volume to come out a number of other people were of crucial importance to the project. I would like to thank the following persons in particular: Barak Kalir and Nel Vandekerckhove for their involvement and inspiring input at an early stage of this project; Maureen E. Hickey, whose comments on individual chapters and the overall structure greatly benefited the volume; and Mary Lynn van Dijk and Paul van der Velde for making this publication possible with Amsterdam University Press. Finally I would like to thank the Asia Research Institute (National University of Singapore) and Nalanda University (Rajgir, India) for providing a more than inspiring and collegial environment to work on this project.