The Migration of Indigenous Ecuadorian Youth in the Age of the ‘Migration Dream’: Migration as a Collective Effort of a Village to Sustain its Cultural Identity in a Globalised World

Abstract

This article focuses on the migration of the young generation in Salasaka within the context of the ‘age of the migration dream’ (Bude and Dürrschmidt 2010), and on three approaches to answering the question of why people migrate through migration theories: the economic approach, the systemic approach, and the narrative approach. It discusses the decision-making processes relating to migration, which are key to understanding perceptions and attitudes towards migration within communities. To gather data on this topic, longitudinal observation and interviews were conducted in the village of Salasaka in the Ecuadorian highlands, a community where cultural heritage and cultural identity, as locals understand it, are deeply valued. Nowadays, the youth have developed new ways of maintaining ‘traditional’ customs. They more often move away from the village than their grandparents, who lived in an endogamous environment. The text contributes to a broader understanding of migration as a social phenomenon, particularly in relation to the preservation of cultural heritage in the context of globalisation, as the traditional and the modern become intertwined in the context of an Indigenous village shaped by migration ties. A key concept for understanding migration in this kind of village, as the research found, is collective remittances and the use of modern means to sustain tradition.