La présente contribution retrace le processus de co-construction d’une « ethnographie du proche » qui durant 20 mois fut focalisée sur les stratégies des travailleuses migrantes pour accéder à la protection sociale. L’auteure propose d’esquisser de nouvelles pratiques de production du savoir inspirées des travaux de Donna Haraway, telles que l’adoption d’une posture de « témoin muté » permettant de rééquilibrer les relations de pouvoir entre le participant et l’auteur.
Migrants are active civic agents participating in transnational social movements. They create, transform, and exploit transnational networks to engage in political movements in both their homeland and the hostland. In this chapter, we demonstrate that migrants accumulate political and cultural knowledge, symbols, emotions of hope, nostalgia, and political practices as a result of their emigration experience. Using empirical examples of Latin American migrants living in Brussels, we argue that social remittances shape the way migrants: (1) develop their political and cultural repertoires of contention; (2) constitute their social identities and networks influencing their political behavior; and (3) embody the ideologies, ideas, and norms of their homeland, while being influenced by the multiple cities in which they have lived. We conclude that Latin American migrants have managed to develop and sustain transnational fields of social and political mobilization to defend their politi-cal struggles and ideals from Brussels itself.
After the 2008 financial crisis, migrants were particularly affected by restrictive migratory policies as well as welfare state budgetary cuts in family allowances, pension rights and unemployment benefits. In this context, this contribution looks into the experiences of Andean migrants that have moved onwards from another EU state to Belgium while trying to counteract these policies. The author argues that depending on their gender, class and ethnic locations Andean migrants are able to construct different sets of global social protection arrangements that allow them to protect themselves and their family members in various countries across Europe and Latin America. Data draws from a multisited ethnography conducted during 20 months in Belgium, Colombia and Peru with 85 participants that included the Andean migrants themselves as well as their family members. The analysis contributes to the literature on onward Intra-European migration as well as studies on transnational social protection.
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