FORCED MIGRATION AND EXILE: ANALYTICAL AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

Over the millennia, migrants, exiles, internally displaced people, and refugees have fled repression, religious and ethnic clashes, and economic and natural crises, with huge impacts on the societies of origin and places of relocation. The specific contours of these forced displacements and relocations have varied across time. In the Americas, forced migration and exile have been recurrent phenomena resulting from natural and environmental disasters, socioeconomic crises, and especially from cycles of civil war, political disruption, and repression. This chapter discusses the systemic implications of forced territorial displacement and relocation in Latin America, including on the formation of nation-states and their role within transnational arenas. Adopting a long durée perspective, the text reviews major contextual factors that have made forced migration, exile, and the resulting diasporas into key constitutive forces of the region's societies, culture, and political orders. The chapter traces historical shifts in forced migration and exile and discusses recent “reconnection” policies launched by several countries that had experienced massive waves of territorial displacement in the late twentieth century followed by a partial return of their migrant populations.