I am a sui generis, I am something new: return, migration and belonging among Argentinean migrant families in the regions of Galicia (Spain) and Veneto (Italy)

ANA IRENE ROVETTA CORTES

Lisboa

Conferencia; Conference Migrant Descendants and Homeland Returns: Identity, Belonging and Transnational Mobility; 2015

Universidade de Lisboa

Can migration be and not be a return at the same time? Until which generation can someone be a descendant? And who decides who is a returnee?Argentina is a country that gained independence in the 19th century and whose population has been mainly formed by migratory flows from Europe (especially from Italy and Spain). That?s why, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, when migrants from Argentina moved to Spain or Italy, their migration was read as a return to ancestral homeland(s) by some social actors. In the last fifteen years, policy makers from several regions of those Euro-Mediterranean countries have developed policies to promote this return migration. Among those regions, the Autonomous Community of Galicia (Spain) and the Region of Veneto (Italy) can be located. In those two regions an ethnographic work has been developed in order to explore: a) the notions of return contained in the regional policies and b) the perceptions of the migratory process which members of twenty Argentinean migrant families have. The latter has been done from an intersectional perspective, considering how gender and generational differences could influence the narratives of these migrants.This research shows that, compared to the romanticized and economistic discourse of policy makers concerning return migration, the members of migrant families adopt different interpretations. Age, generation, generational distance with the migrant ancestors, and the type of ties shared with (or transmitted about) them condition the reading that each person makes with regard to return, migration and belonging(s).