This collection aims to take to task some of the new orthodoxies of return in the Balkans, looking beyond the statistics on return to analyse the structures motivating the return discourse in both property law and international relations, and to look at the experiences of return within this context that reveal a reality outside the confines of policy prescriptions. With “sustainable” return a recurring theme of national and international actors involved in peace negotiations and post-conflict reconstruction, this collection of papers queries what is meant by sustainable return and what it requires to flourish, and as such provides a new understanding of return in the Balkans that could have implications for new peace processes around the world.