Homeward Bound: The Influence of Emigration and Return on Aezkoa Valley and its Surrounding Rural Communities in Northern Navarre at the turn of the 19th Century

The aim of this dissertation is to provide a study on Basque transnational migration from the perspective of the homeland. The goal is to see to what extent this transnational migration influenced and impacted local communities in the rural Basque area, concretely in Aezkoa Valley and other villages that surround it at the turn of the nineteenth century into the twentieth. The traditional focus of Basque migration studies has long been on male migrants and unidirectional migratory experiences. This study will address migration phenomena from the other side, attempting to deconstruct migration as a predominantly male and unilateral sphere by analyzing migration effects from the perspective of the homeland, women, children, and family. By addressing the changes that both emigrants and returnees prompted in their hometowns in Aezkoa Valley, the flow of ideas and people in-between two worlds will be analyzed from the point of view of cultural encounters that led to hybrid practices. These encounters and interactions created new realities in the homeland, many times transforming the everyday life of the peasant as well as the society as a whole. These influences will be tracked through the study of different cases or vital experiences of those who decided to emigrate and to return to their homeland, some of whom went back and forth. The impact of these migrants and returnees on society affected areas such as landholding, family interactions and dynamics, and the opening of the rigid neighborhood system that existed in these societies