Suchergebnisse

"The United States has seen a dramatic rise in the number of informal day labor sites in the last two decades. These sites, typically frequented by immigrant Latin American men--mostly taken to be 'undocumented' immigrants--constitute an important source of unskilled manual labor that sustains building, landscaping, and moving activities in the country. Despite their ubiquitous presence in urban areas, however, much of the research on immigration overlooks day laborers' very existence. While standing in plain view, these men live and work in a precarious environment: As they try to make enough money to send home, they are at the mercy of unscrupulous employers, doing dangerous and underpaid work, and, ultimately, experiencing great threats to their identities and social roles as men. Born and raised in Colombia by an American mother and Colombian father, Juan Thomas Ordóñez spent two years on an informal labor site in the Bay Area, documenting the harsh lives led by some of these men during the worst economic crisis the country has seen in decades. Another Latin American among mainly Mexican and Central American day laborers, he gained a vantage on the immigrant experience based on close relationships with a cohort of men whose lives unravel in a setting of competition, stress, loneliness, and resilience. Both eye-opening and heart-breaking, this account offers a unique perspective on how the informal economy of undocumented labor truly functions in American society"--Provided by publisher.

This article explores the ways in which migrant workers establish particular relations to the state in shifting environments of criminalization and stigmatization that change the geography and nature of undocumented labor in the United States. Centering on Northern California, I address the results of the economic downturn between 2007 and 2009 for undocumented migrant men who had established jobs and paid taxes using fake Social Security cards, but whose labor conditions became unsustainable, leading many of them to turn to informal labor sites. I argue that work environments for many migrants shift to effectively ensure the marginalization of cheap labor, while maintaining their contributions to local economies and accommodating to the political constraints of the moment. I follow accounts of counterfeit identification, mainly fake Social Security cards, in labor practices that inscribe migrant laborers into the "system" they are supposed to be abusing, but to which they actually contribute a great deal through mimetic articulations of citizenship. I show how severing such ties becomes necessary in times of economic crisis and heighted criminalization, and I illustrate the ways in which real and imagined state repression make what Nicholas De Genova (2002) has called "deportability" an effective way to control and maintain an undocumented labor force within the boundaries of the country. © 2016 by the American Anthropological Association

AbstractThis article explores the distinction between economic and forced migration by following three Guatemalan day labourers in northern California who "discover" the possibility of asylum after coming to theUSas undocumented migrants. Vaguely understood as"some sort of help for Guatemalans," asylum acquires a confusing assortment of meanings for these men as they hear about it from other migrants and localNGOs. They thus face two problems that hinder their application. The first is that their own rendering of their reasons for migration can look both "forced" and "voluntary." The second is that beyond the validity of their claims, their life in theUSis embedded in the marginalization of the cohort of undocumented migrants they join. Whatever the outcome, the men thus continue to follow the logics of fear and mistrust that characterize undocumented day labourers in the United States.

Introducción: en este artículo se propone una reflexión sobre la construcción mediática y política de la imagen del migrante venezolano como amenaza a la salud y seguridad pública en Colombia. Desarrollo: a partir de 2015, la migración masiva de venezolanos enfrenta a la sociedad colombiana a una situación inédita en su historia reciente. En medio de un contexto atravesado por la hiperpolitización de las relaciones entre ambos países, miles de migrantes se han encontrado con la estigmatización en una sociedad que desarrolla mecanismos para contener las posibles `amenazas` que representa su movilidad. Para tales fines, este artículo aborda tanto noticias e imágenes de diferentes medios de comunicación, como discursos políticos y noticias falsas que circulan mediante cadenas de WhatsApp que, en su conjunto, terminan por afianzar la percepción de amenaza en distintos sectores de la sociedad colombiana. Conclusiones: las políticas de solidaridad y ayuda que pregona el Estado van de la mano con mensajes contradictorios producidos en los medios que, en últimas, le presentan al público a una población indiferenciada que pone en peligro al cuerpo de la nación. ; Introduction: This article addresses the political and mediatized construction of the 'Venezuelan migrant' as a threat to public health and security in Colombia. Development: Since 2015, massive migration from Venezuela has forced Colombian society into an unprecedented situation in its recent history. Amidst the hyper-politicization of bilateral relations between the countries, thousands of Venezuelan migrants have crossed the border, only to encounter stigmatization in a society that is in the process of developing different mechanisms to contain the supposed 'danger' they represent. We use digital news reports and images published by media outlets, political speeches, and 'fake news' messages disseminated through WhatsApp to show how this perception of threat consolidates. Conclusions: We suggest that the State's push to address the problem with solidarity and aid goes hand in hand with contradictory messages produced by the media, which present the Colombian public with an undifferentiated population that threatens the body of the nation.

This article explores the singularities of Kichwa-Otavalo migrants in Bogota. With seventy years of historical presence in this city that includes continual relationships not only between people in Colombia and Ecuador, but at the worldwide level as well, this population constitutes a complex and significant case for migration studies. On the one hand, it raises the question of transnational relations where the "place of origin" has been dislocated through secondary foci around which the population is articulated. On the other hand, it illustrates the importance of migratory networks with respect to recognition by the state. Thus, we show different forms of integration into the city and suggest that a central determining factor of living conditions in the city is tied to people's relative position to established migratory networks.

Este artículo muestra cambios en las estrategias migratorias de indígenas migrantes kichwa-otavalo ecuatorianos, siguiendo las trayectorias de tres comerciantes y músicos de diferentes edades. Discutimos las diferentes maneras en que las estrategias han cambiado en tres generaciones y las relaciones que establecen los migrantes con las redes que usan para viajar. En un panorama donde hay cambios y continuidades que han llevado a miembros de esta población a casi todos los continentes del mundo, exploramos cómo sus redes comerciales se enlazan en un campo social transnacional que es dinámico y cambiante.

Desde hace aproximadamente dos décadas, Colombia se ha visto expuesta a flujos migratorios de africanos, asiáticos y caribeños (generalmente cubanos y haitianos). Este artículo analiza la manera en que estos flujos son tratados en la prensa nacional digital, la academia y la legislación colombiana. Las construcciones del problema que encontramos en estas esferas muestran una predominancia de la asociación entre esta forma de movilidad humana y el tráfico de migrantes. Sugerimos que esta perspectiva no da cuenta de la diversidad de formas en las que se puede gestionar el viaje y que más bien estigmatiza y criminaliza las relaciones espontáneas o desinteresadas que se puedan crear en el tránsito, negando la capacidad de agencia que tiene la gente en movimiento.

Explores global migration through the concept of "return"The current global moment is characterized by both forced and desired returns, whether it's the United States' mass deportations to Mexico, ships carrying North African migrants turned back en route to Spain and Italy, urban Chinese migrants going back to their rural home communities, or domestic workers returning to their families in Bolivia and Ghana. Yet, the majority of migration research still centers unidirectional movement, which assumes settlement in a host country.States of Return addresses the many political, economic, and cultural transitions that have accelerated and transformed return during the first decades of the twenty-first century, including new migratory routes, new forms of violence, changing economic conditions, new regulatory regimes of incarceration and deportation, and generational transitions.This volume features contributions from leading scholars and offers a new theorization of the idea of return. It centers migrants' own understandings of what return movement is and is not, and how it is experienced in terms of impacts on family relationships as well as state interventions that guide return migrations and create new configurations of citizenship and belonging, especially as migrant workers tend to return to states that lack strong infrastructures to support them or welcome them back.At its core, States of Return highlights the ways in which different migrants' returns reflect conditions of power, privilege, injustice, and violence. The result is a broad and deep account of returns—imagined, achieved, thwarted, or impossible—that captures movement across borders in the world today