Significados sobre la ciudadanía múltiple: el caso de los argentinos que retornan desde España con pasaporte europeo

Abstract

Although the Argentine crisis of 2001 led about the largest exodus of Argentinians to Spain, the later advent of the crisis of 2008 originates a series of displacements in an opposite direction: Argentinians stop emigrating to the European country to begin the return to their country of origin. In this return process, migrants mobilized certain resources, being the European passport, one of the most significant. The objective of this paper is to identify the meanings that returnees assign to either multiple citizenship or dual citizenship. To this end, 32 semi- structured interviews were conducted in order to analyze the narration of those who possess European citizenship through their ancestors (adscript citizenship) and those who have acquired it after their migratory stay in Spain (acquired citizenship). Results show that the identified meanings differ according to the profile, whether it is ascribed or acquired, yet they share common ground. One of the most relevant findings is that multiple citizenship involves a capital accumulation process that compensates the deficiencies of the origin nationality. At the same time, it can facilitate geographical and social mobility and, as a result, to transform itself into another way of capital (human, financial or social).