The Amerikas Colloquium

Dr. Ximena Alba Villalever (Freie Universität Berlin):

"Migrants' Struggles in an Increasingly Violent Path to 'Safety'". Experiences of Forced Migrants in Mexico

Human mobility has become an increasingly complex phenomenon. Between wars and armed conflicts,
environmental disasters that particularly affect countries of the Global South, economic, political and social
instability, persecution because of religion, diverse identities or political views and different forms of gender
violence, as well as well-known migration patterns in the search of better lives, better work possibilities and
higher access to education, thousands of people leave their homes and their countries to start anew.
However, the path to search for security, for a better life and for better opportunities is often accompanied
by a set of obstacles, among which encounters with different forms of violence take place. Current global
migration governance trends have sought to contain the movement of people, especially to the Global
North, through strategies of border securitization and externalization, and in the last decade, Mexico has
become representative of these efforts. Drawing from a multi-sited ethnography in this bottle-neck transit
country, and with an intersectional lens, I analyze the paths of migrants in transit through Mexico, their
experiences with various forms of violence, and their strategies to overcome them.

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When?          Thursday, January 12, 2023, 18:15

Where?         via Zoom, get the link by writing an e-mail to
                      nele.guderian@campus.lmu.de