| Abstract: | This paper explores alternative understandings and experiences of migration under neoliberalism in Ecuador. Through the case study, the study examines migrants' multiple motivations for mobility and their ambivalence toward the process. Insights from the transnational migration literature were drawn in order to think through the implications of an increasingly contradictory context of economic modernization and its impact upon the sense of possibilities and belonging of migrants. In-depth interviews with urban-destined migrants in Ecuador were drawn to argue that mobility produces ambivalent development subjects. This argument is developed in three sections. First, the paper centers on the epistemological and theoretical basis for the relevance of migrant narratives in extending theorizations of migration. Second, in-depth interviews with migrants to Quito are drawn to explore migrants' sense of belonging and regional affiliation, identity formation through migration, and experiences of alienation and disruption in their lives. Lastly, this paper concludes with a retheorization of the role of migration places in the migrant identity construction. |
