The migration of Spaniards to Venezuela: the circulation of Canarian human capital (1940-2022)

Abstract

Emigration from the Canary Islands is a long-standing phenomenon in Venezuela and has been extensively analyzed from multiple perspectives. This article explores this phenomenon, particularly since the 1940s, through the approach of the circularity of human capital, which has been little used in the examination of the Canarian migratory flow. This perspective illuminates areas as diverse as the transnational character of relationships and organizations, the role of the community in explaining migration, citizenship and entrepreneurship and, in general, the mobility of ideas, skills, concepts and resources. For the realization of this study, numerous interviews conducted in Tenerife and Madrid are used to account for the migratory journey of many emigrants who, in addition, in the last two decades have returned en masse to the Canary Islands given the situation in Venezuela.