This evidence-based study is about Chilean voluntary repatriation as a political process rooted in the political history of Chile and in the wider context of the end of the Cold War. It considers the two main socio-political scenarios of the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990) and transitional democracy (1990-) but also brings the interim years of 1988-1990 to the fore. It focuses on the voluntary, class and gender dimensions of voluntary repatriation, arguing that decisions to return are not the product of individual choices or factors as argued in most of the literature, but influenced by a complex interplay of structures operating at the macro and micro levels. Chilean hegemonic institutions such as political parties, the Catholic Church and the family as well as patriotism along with class and gender shaped these decisions. Return discourses such as El Derecho a vivir en 10 patria, later replaced by Chile Somos Todos, were rooted in such matrix. In explaining voluntary repatriation, this study introduces a new concept to the field: the notion of returnism as a political narrative of nationhood and return-control mechanism that succesfully interwove both micro and macro levels in the exilio-retorno compression. A key finding is that the very hegemonic structures that were in place before and during exile were not only reproduced and strengthened during the dictatorship but were also used against it and termed here the like with like argument. Through the socio-political developments that took place both in Chile and exile, this study analyses the experiences of returnees. For this purpose, secondary concepts are introduced. The analysis explains why some returnees 'succeeded' and others 'failed' to find a place in Chilean society and shows paradoxically that voluntary repatriation was more sustainable under dictatorship. Overall, class and gender positioning are determinant in the 'end of the refugee cycle'.

This thesis is an exploration into the interrelation of memory, defeat, exile and solidarity. The work will investigate the moment of the Chilean coup and the process of remembrance which followed within Britain. The thesis will demonstrate that the Chilean coup deeply influenced sections of British society and has since been mourned by competing and alternative memories. It will be argued throughout this thesis that there is no fixed correlation between the definition of a particular event as catastrophic, the sustaining of that definition within memory, and the quantum of human suffering that is produced. Instead the memory of defeat was constructed in Britain through an active process of organised solidarity and exile politics. Principally this work is a study into the creation, contestation and preservation of a memory of Chile within British groups and networks of exiles from 1973 onwards. The research is centred on a series of interviews with Chilean exiles in Britain, both those who remained in Britain and those who had since returned to Chile. Using oral history to record the memories of an overlooked group of grassroots Chilean exiles, the research will critically engage with these compelling narratives, in contrast to the existing literature which focuses on more elite exile figures. Although some historians have pursued related goals, with two archival studies focusing on Chile Solidarity Campaign in Britain, and separate works providing oral histories of Chilean exiles, this thesis will bridge these separate works and will combine oral history with archival research. The thesis will examine the differing memories Chilean exiles in Britain possessed. The individual exile memories discussed in this thesis are then integrated into a broader history of solidarity and British political history. It is argued that these memories can only be understood within the space in which they are formed, exploring the new context of British society which exiles interacted with. The thesis will then investigate the British Left's more theoretical response to the Chilean coup and how alternative memories were constructed, a relationship which has been academically ignored until now. The work will also examine more practical responses to the coup through the Chile solidarity movement, investigating both the rise of human right politics and labour movement solidarity with Chile. The thesis will argue that these responses to Chile provided a terrain in which exiles in Britain could reflect and understand their experiences. The research will then investigate the process of return for exiles into a transformed country which refused to discuss the recent past. Exiles interviewed for this research described their return to Chile as a 'second exile' as their memories of the Chilean past clashed with those in Chile who had experienced the same events. Finally, the thesis will explore the arrest of Pinochet in Britain in 1998. While there is a great deal of legal research on this event, the research here will situate the arrest within a broader history of solidarity in Britain. The arrest is used as a window in which to further examine the British memorialisation of the Chilean past and its changing nature.

Notre travail a pour objet d'étudier la construction identitaire des fils et/ou filles de ceux que les sociétés argentine et chilienne nomment aujourd'hui les « disparus ». Une notion nécessairement complexe, lorsque l'on sait qu'elle fait aujourd'hui référence à toute une politique de répression, de torture et d'extermination massives et systématiques, mises en place par les juntes militaires parvenues au pouvoir à partir de 1973 (Chili) et 1976 (Argentine). Cet héritage familial a impliqué, pour la « deuxième génération », une déconstruction et reconstruction de la vérité, ainsi que le tissage de tout un réseau d'éléments identificatoires et mémoriels. Dans ce parcours identitaire sinueux et complexe, chacun s'efforce également de développer une forme de résilience / We will focus on studying the identity construction of the sons and/or daughters of those who are nowadays called « the Missing » by the Argentinian and Chilean societies. An inevitably complex notion, when we know that it refers to a whole policy of repression, torture and systematic mass extermination, organized by the military juntas who reached power from 1973 (Chile) and 1976 (Argentina). For the « second generation », this family legacy implied reconstructing the truth as well as weaving a whole network of memory elements. In this sinuous and complex identity quest, they also gradually develop some resilience.