"We were never from another country": Uruguayans return migration between the years of 2005 and 2015
Migration, Uruguay, National Identity, Return, Oral-History
This thesis aims to ponder about migration and return and the identities of migrating individuals. Through oral history, some individuals lives and migratory process are narrated, with a theoretical discussion about migration, nation-state building and national identities. Uruguay is the background for all those reflections, as almost one quarter of its population finds themselves currently out of its borders. The narratives of migrants returned to their original country are presented in dialogue with an interdisciplinary bibliography, focusing on handling all the different categories of analysis raised by the subjects' own perspectives. From the development of those questions, we understand that the returning migration phenomenon can not be seen as going back, but as a part of a process which communicates with representative productions generated through memories and the idea of belonging to a wider community. Thus, the analysis demonstrates that the migration processes are more complex than just departure and arrival movements, being crossed by many other factors.