The dissertation s main purpose is to analyze the process of social construction of the Refugee in two specific historical moments in the second half of the twentieth century: from 1945 to 1954 and after the end of the Cold War. The main goal is to demonstrate how discursive practices related to the refugee are informed by the constitutional structures of international society and by the fundamental values and beliefs that legitimate state action. It also aims at showing the contingent and changing nature of the refugee definition in contexts of profound transformations in international orders. The research is based on a constructivist approach, mainly in Reus-Smit (1999) and Onuf s (1989) frameworks, in an attempt to provide a more adequate understanding of the social processes constitutive of the refugee in the modern society of States, highlighting the role of international organizations, in particular the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In that sense, it gives emphasis to the primary importance attached to territoriality and the spatial imagery as fundamental criteria to establishing the limits of forced international migration, a criteria that has faced great challenges since the nineties.