Route across Mexico: Sociocultural Impacts of (Transit)-migration in Mexico

Migration has always been a motor in human history. However, the phenomenon has reached a new quality and scale across the world during the last century. If we are talking about migration flows on the American continent, Mexico is a country of fundamental importance, not just regarding the USA. Mexico is not only the country of origin of many immigrants but transit or destination for many people of different identities and nationalities, too. Thus, general statements on the topic of migration in Mexico are hard to make and a detailed elaboration of different forms and impacts of migration in the country is required.

The objective of our project demonstrate this diversity. The research group will work interdisciplinary on different sub topics in order to take a look at as many different facets of the migration phenomenon, forms of migration in the country and their impact on the country. For our field research, we are looking for contacts to local institutions such as universities, NGOs, Albergues (accommodation for migrants) and to migrants themselves, too. The topics are divided by interest and discipline of our group members as follows:

1. The Mexican coverage on (transit-)migration and migrants (Alix Bielefeld & Hendrik Heiermann)

Scientific media contents analysis on Mexican coverage regarding migration in general or individual migration flows of the last decades (e. g. of the „caravans“ of central American transit refugees since 2018) show, that especially mass media strongly influence the public opinion and the social atmosphere towards this group of people. There are certain patterns of narration (so called „Frames“) that are used to report on (transit-)migrants and migration flows and which have been determined and analyzed by scientists. Building on this research, we intend to find out, how coverage is regarded from different points of view. We want to question journalists and media scientists on the one hand as well as people who cooperate with migrants on a daily basis (e.g. in hostels or NGO’s) on the other hand to get an explorative atmospheric picture.

2. The legal capacity of female migrants in Mexico (Stephanie Gutiérrez Rangel)

Often the predominant idea is that migration is a an exclusively male phenomenon, which characterizes women and children as dependents and involuntary company of male migration actors and pictures them exclusively as victims. Up to the late 20th century, the recognition of women was neglected in migration studies. As late as the 90ties, with the influence of gender and feminist perspectives, a deconstruction of hegemonistic discourses and interpretations started, which lead to relevant conceptional and methodical progresses. In this context, this part of the research is aimed at questioning the characterization of women as well as individuals considered to be female as dependents and victims of migration and to confront this picture with a perspective of "active actors", which emphasizes their legal capacity. This serves to answer the research question: how does the legal capacity of female migrants in Mexico express or show itself including their differences, capital forms and in the design of collective action?

3. North-South-Migration to Mexico (Laura Marcela Orjuela Orjuela)

Another focus of the project is on the (mostly) north-south-migration of the „digital nomads“. Due to the Covid-19-Pandemic, the flexibilization of work and the increasing use of the internet, many people have decided to leave their places of origin and traditional office jobs to migrate to other countries and to work remotely from there. In accordance with surveys conducted by „Internations.org“, Mexico is the most popular country of destination of expats worldwide and equally popular with digital nomads. Thus, the country has become a host country and experienced a social change. In order to examine the topic more thoroughly and to expand the academic research on this area, it is of fundamental importance to investigate the main sociodemographic characteristics of the digital nomads intensively. We intend to analyze their interactions among themselves as well as their coexistence in physical and virtual surroundings. The data and results gained in this research will be used in a future master thesis.

4. Linguistic changes due to migration: Judaeo-Spanish in Mexico (Lars Hafke)

In this part of the project we will deal with the question how the Sephardic Jews have maintained the Judaeo-Spanish / Ladino in their migration process to Mexico and how it has changed. Judaeo-Spanish is mainly based on ancient Spanish and is only spoken by the elder generation in the Jewish diaspora, e.g. in Bulgaria, after the Jews have been expelled from Spain. However, there has been a smaller migration wave to Latin America, including Mexico. During our research visit, I would like to get in touch with different institutes and universities to learn more about the current presence of the language and the change or maintenance of the
Judaeo-Spanish.

Student research group

Alix Bielefeld (2. semester MA-Latin America studies)
Hendrik Heiermann (2. semester MA-Latin America studies)
Stephanie Gutiérrez Rangel (2. semester MA-Latin America studies)
Laura Marcela Orjuela Orjuela (2. semester MA-Latin America studies)
Lars Malte Hafke (5. semester BA-Spanish)

Mentors

Prof. Dr. Inke Gunia
Dr. Gilberto Rescher