Dreams and Challenges in the Lives of Migrants: Returning Migrants in Rural Guatemala

Sammanfattning

In recent years, the deportations from the US have increased. This study explores the socialand economic lives of returned migrants in a rural village in Guatemala. Return is achallenging process for migrants and their dependents. This study focuses on the lives,challenges and possibilities of migrants and on how they experience their return to the village.The social narrative in the village is about achieving certain goals, such as to buy land and ahouse, to improve one’s life situation. The life in the village consists of navigation betweenthe challenges and possibilities of migrating. The return to the village is an ambivalentprocess as the socioeconomic conditions upon return depend on the level of success as amigrant. This study argues that return is a difficult process as social expectations, shame andunachieved dreams create emotional distress and challenges in everyday lives. This studybuilds on theories on migration and deportation as well as theories on the social and economiceffects of migration. To conceptualize data, concepts such as social capital, in-betweennessand shame have been used in the analysis of the collected data. These theories and conceptshelp in the understanding of social pressure and the considerations of migrating again. Themain methods used in this study were semi-structured interviews and participantobservations. The interviews helped approach the field and the participants, while participantobservations were important to gain a holistic understanding of the dynamics of migration inthe village. This study is written in English.