The investigation of the relationships between migration processes and the reconstructions of social identities and of social relations within local, national and international contexts illustrates how social change in an Oaxacan community in Mexico is a complex, multi-faceted process. This study examines how migration processes and social change shape and are shaped by people and practices in specific historical moments interacting dialectically with broader social, economic and political structures. By paying greater attention to the quotidian and to the choices that people make as they go about their daily lives, the heterogeneity and multiplicity of community members' subjectivities and experiences are highlighted. Gender, ethnicity, race, age, class, sexuality, and religion are examined as crucial variables in processes of social differentiation and in the social reproduction of gender/racial/class hierarchies in which women and men are situated. The research applies the concept of hegemony to demonstrate that power is not separate from meaning; the social construction of meanings plays an important role in the creation of consent, collaboration or resistance. Community members have internalized their own domination through hegemonic processes, reproducing the dominant social order, yet they frequently challenge their own particular social locations within this social order. Migration processes and the globalization of communication and consumption in advanced capitalism have played key roles in these processes. New experiences and information technologies have led to a redefining and re-presenting of meanings and practices which have had negative and positive impacts on individuals, on families and on the community.

The central concern of this study is to determine the role of return migration in the changing economic and noneconomic determinants of state in-migration. It was hypothesized that the transition from primarily economic to noneconomic determinants of in-migration in the United States in the last decade was directly related to changes in the components of the migration stream itself; that is, that an increasing proportion of return migrants in the in-migration stream contributes to the movement toward noneconomic reasons for migrating. This study compares the selective characteristics of lifetime and five-year non migrants, and primary, secondary and return migrants using Public Use Sample data for 1960, 1970, and 1980. In addition, it analyzes four economic and six noneconomic determinants of migration for 1970 and 1980 usinq a data set that includes published data on state migration and socioeconomic characteristics. An analysis of the selectivities of migration has both supported and rejected existing literature. In a comparison of migrants and non migrants, migrants tend to be younger, better educated persons from white collar occupations with higher incomes and smaller households than non migrants. When migrant types are compared, return migrants tend not to be as well off as other migrants socioeconomically. They tend to have lower education, come from blue collar occupations, have larger households, be a little older and have less income than other migrants. The most significant finding is the distinction of five-year from lifetime nonmigrants. The regression analysis on the determinants of state in-migration reveals that there has been a shift from economic to noneconomic reasons for migrating from 1970 to 1980. In addition, the relative proportion of primary, secondary and return migration has changed over time. Contrary to the hypothesis, however, the trend from economic to noneconomic determinants of migration has not been related to changes in the proportion of return this study points to the relationship migration in the stream. Rather, further research that investigates between secondary migration and the changing determinants of state in-migration. / Ph. D.

published_or_final_version / Sociology / Master / Master of Philosophy