Building Democracy or Reproducing ‘Ecuadoreanness’? A Transnational Exploration of Ecuadorean Migrants' External Voting
- 13 November 2013
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in Journal of Latin American Studies
- Vol. 45 (4), 721-750
- https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022216x13001181
Abstract
Ecuador has emerged as a good case study of the interactions between diasporas and their countries of origin. The recent enactment of external voting rights has mirrored a novel political discourse which emphasises the positive contribution of ‘emigrant brothers’ and their unbroken allegiance to their homeland. Expatriate reactions to these new political developments are at the core of our article, which heuristically reconstructs the social roots and meanings of expatriate participation in the constitutional referendum held in 2008. Questionnaires were simultaneously administered to Ecuadorean voters in nine cities in seven countries. Based on this innovative convenience sample, the expectations and motivations underlying people's electoral involvement and civic participation are explored against the background of transnational connections and attachments. An understanding of voters' involvement on a terrain of symbolic patriotism, identity reassertion and ‘home re-evocation’ – rather than in strictly electoral terms – is advanced. External voting – whatever its impact on domestic politics – should be appreciated as an institutional opportunity for migrants' national identification and belonging to be represented.This publication has 30 references indexed in Scilit:
- Reminiscences, Patriotism, Participation: Approaching External Voting in Ecuadorian Immigration to ItalyInternational Migration, 2011
- Migration, Gender, and PoliticsLatin American Perspectives, 2010
- Migration, Membership, and the Modern Nation-State: Internal and External Dimensions of the Politics of BelongingJournal of Interdisciplinary History, 2010
- Recession and Migration: A New Era for Labor Migration?Published by SAGE Publications ,2009
- Is nostalgia becoming digital? Ecuadorian diaspora in the age of global capitalismSocial Identities, 2009
- Ecuadorians in the United States and Spain: History, Gender and Niche FormationJournal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2007
- Extraterritorial Political Rights and Dual Citizenship in Latin AmericaLatin American Research Review, 2007
- El Quinto Suyo from above and from Below: State Agency and Transnational Political Practices among Peruvian Migrants in The US and EuropeLatino Studies, 2006
- Ecuadorian Immigrants And Symbolic Nationalism In ChicagoLatino Studies, 2005
- Family and Collective Remittances to Mexico: A Multi‐dimensional TypologyDevelopment and Change, 2004