In Zapotitlán, we won't have to pay for so many things: The Great Recession, return migration and social reproduction

This chapter explores how the Great Recession and increasingly restrictive immigration policies shaped the selectivity of return to Zapotitlán. Which migrants returned to Zapotitlán and why? Into what social and economic context did return migrants insert? Which migrants re-migrated to the United States and why? How did migrants and others make sense of these changes? The multiple links among productive and social reproductive labor inform migrants’ complex decision-making processes about mobility. Gender traverses decisions about mobility because most social reproductive tasks are assigned to women in rural Mexico and among female migrants in the United States. Furthermore, state interventions into social reproduction shaped the quality of life that migrants could expect to enjoy in the United States or Mexico which in turn had an effect on decisions about migration and return. In Mexico, we explore how the state intervened in local development through a tourism project and how these processes played out in Zapotitecos/as’ lives. Credit from different types of financial institutions mediated productive and reproductive relations in Zapotitlán, often in the form of microloans to stimulate women’s “empowerment.” Finally, we analyze how remittances played a role in social reproduction after the Great Recession.