Migrant Transnationalism: Emigrant policies in Uruguay and Uruguayan association movements in Argentina

Abstract

This paper examines Uruguayan state emigrant policies toward Uruguayan migrant population and their implications in associations of Uruguayans in Argentina. The article draws on transnational perspectives for the study of international migration that redefined the understanding of integration processes in the context of migration, as well as on anthropological ethnographic work conducted between 2005 and 2012.We approach the institutionalization process of the link between state and migrant population considering the program Departmento 20-La patria peregrina, which was part of a series of policies to include migration issues into the Uruguayan public agenda. These processes are analyzed from the point of view of the migrants themselves, namely the Uruguayan community in Buenos Aires, reorganized through the creation of the Consejo Consultivo at the request of immigration policy for connecting with the State of origin.