You don't know where your home is: impacts of migration laws on Argentinean families living in the Veneto and Galicia regions

ANA IRENE ROVETTA CORTES

Amsterdam

Conferencia; Migration as a family matter Conference; 2015

Vrije Universiteit

Argentinean family migration to European countries, like Spain and Italy, is conditioned by a number of norms and laws (at national, regional and local levels) that makes it different from other contemporary transoceanic flows and influences the ways in which the member of these families establish and maintain their (transnational) ties.Argentina, Spain and Italy share a history of exchanges that have been frequently defined as a migratory system. This fact, together with the ethno-national character of the citizenship laws of both European countries: 1) has facilitated the access to dual citizenship for many migrant families and, 2) at a regional and local level, has conducted to initiatives of promotion of new migration flows, which have been read as a ?return migration? by the policy makers who promoted those initiatives.This paper aims to show how the members of some Argentinean families who live in two specific regions of Italy (Veneto) and Spain (Galicia) deal with the regional return policies and with the nationality and immigration laws in order to organize their family lives. From a qualitative perspective, an ethnographic work that includes 52 interviews with members of these families [parents (27) and children (-15- adults and children -10-)] has been developed to inquire about the perceptions that each member has about the migration experience; taking into account possible differences in terms of social positionings (as gender and generation).