ResumenEste artículo analiza la experiencia de retorno de migrantes ecuatorianos desde España en los últimos cinco años con base en una investigación cualitativa de familias en Ecuador y en España. Se parte de una concepción del retorno como un proceso en vez de como un acontecimiento que cierra el proyecto migratorio, analizando tanto la inserción laboral y social de hombres y mujeres retornados. Los hallazgos sugieren que los capitales sociales y culturales conseguidos antes de la migración son más relevantes que los adquiridos en la migración, para una inserción laboral favorable en esta etapa inicial del retorno. Los hallazgos respecto a la reinserción social muestran que debido a un intenso sentido de pertenencia alimentado por prácticas transnacionales durante todo el periodo migratorio, la integración social de los migrantes es relativamente fluida aunque existen significativas diferencias entre hombres y mujeres, relacionadas con diversas experiencias de inserción laboral. Palabras claveCrisis Económica; Inserción Laboral; Migración; Retorno; Ecuador; España. Times of Crisis and Times to Return? Migratory, Occupational and Social Trajectories of Returning Migrants in Ecuador AbstractThis article examines the experience of Ecuadorian returnees from Spain in the context of the global crisis. The analysis is grounded on a multi-sited qualitative research among migrant families in Ecuador and Spain that looked at labor and social integration from a gender perspective. Migrant return is conceived as a process rather than as an event ending the migratory project. Findings suggest important gender differences, both in terms of labor insertion as well as social integration. Social and cultural principles acquired before migration are more relevant than the migration experience in explaining successful labor integration At the same time, social integration is related to an intense sense of identity and belonging reinforced by transnational practices.

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Migrant smuggling has in recent decades become more prominent globally as a consequence of increasingly restrictive border and migration control policies. Whereas popular media discourses and official policy typically depict migrant smugglers as organized criminals who prey on vulnerable migrants and asylum seekers, migration scholars have instead argued that migrant smuggling is a complex marketplace involving both licit and illicit transactions and a grounded social and cultural practice through which aspiring migrants confront their lack of legal options for migration. Despite efforts to empirically situate migrant smuggling as something other than just ruthless criminal activity towards innocent victims, less attention has been given to migrants’ own understanding of their travel options and regulation of associated risks. This chapter focuses on coyoterismo -or migrant smuggling – as a community-based activity embedded in the social fabric of migrant-sending communities in Southern Ecuador. We examine the limits of the contractual relationships established between smugglers (coyoteros), money-lenders (chulqueros), and migrants and their families who rely on these services to sustain their mobile livelihoods. Specifically, we focus on how indigenous migrants from Cañar make use of multiple legal systems to assert their agency and establish accountability vis-a-vis the coyotes who facilitate their migration between Ecuador and the United States.