“Whom should We Help First?” Transnational Helping Practices in Ecuadorian Migration

Abstract

Collective remittances, in the framework of migrant transnationalism, have been recently dealt with in some empirical research, especially on the Mexican-US migration system. Far less studied is their significance in different migration flows, including their real contribution -as desirable as this may be -to local development. The article is concerned with a bottom up analysis of a migration flow where collective remittances -as the only way for emigrants to keep helping their local communities, well beyond their own families -are still in their infancy. It explores, through a translocal ethnography of Ecuadorian migration to Italy, the underlying attitudes, personal meanings and expectations -as well as the structural opportunities and constraints -accounting for helping practices at a distance. Charitable transfers to communities of origin are reconstructed as to their motivations, their main aims and beneficiaries, their embeddedness in mutual networks among immigrant co-nationals. How is it that some of them decide to help ''people in need'' in their own communities overseas, or in their home towns, or in both? Is this an expression of communal belonging, or a matter of social status maintenance, or something else?Further reflections on the dilemmas inherent in transnational helping practices are then developed. Concluding remarks emphasize the relatively poor scope for such initiatives, in a recent and first-generation flow over a long distance. While co-ethnic solidarity overseas is a precondition for transnational helping practices, the latter are also affected by the developments of public policies in the countries of origin and of destination. Overall, an effective integration overseas is necessary for collective remittances to have some currency and impact.Helping other people here?!? This is the duty of the State, they've been doing nothing so far -it's not our concern! We already work so hard for our families… W., ex-immigrant (Pasaje, 11.06) With respect to them [those left behind], we are the privileged ones! The truly poor ones are there [in Ecuador], not here [in Italy]... J., immigrant (Trento, 04.07)

One (Slender) Tree, Many (Social) Roots: Revisiting Immigrant Associations Through a Case Study on Ecuadorians in Italy

“…The relative infrequency of helping and philanthropic practices should not be attributed only to a (very real) paucity of funds. Their development seemed to mirror also the organizational strength and the community embeddedness of immigrant association making (Boccagni, 2013). Occasional money collections for co-nationals who were unemployed, or severely ill, were a case in point of philanthropic practices driven by a tacit and deep-rooted principle of reciprocity.…”

“…Migrant organizations have also been studied as an informal source of information about homeland politics (Morales & Pilati, 2014), including the registration procedures for participating in absentee ballots (Lafleur & Calderón, 2011). Their actual contribution to transnational politics, or to the migration and development field, is, however, generally limited and context-dependent (Boccagni, 2013). Furthermore, the role of immigrant associations is often exposed to inflated or over-instrumental expectations within the new global development agenda (Faist, 2007).…”

Polish migration within Europe: mobility, transnationalism and integration

“…The imaginative power of desires for proximity have also been discussed by Boccagni (2010) as well as the ways in which particular transnational practices maintain and nurture proximity via remittances (Georgiou, 2012), which echo the ways in which proximity for the migrant experiences analyzed in articles in this Special Issue also straddles the divide between concrete practices and desired imagined future actions Secondly, drawing on Bissell's development of alternative ontologies of proximity (2013), we suggest that an ontology of proximity characterized by exposures, is also relevant in our analyses of the interactions of transnationalism and integration in the settlement processes of Polish migrants across European contexts.…”

Putting Belonging into Place: Place Experience and Sense of Belonging amongEcuadorian Migrants in anItalianAlpine Region

“…Parties are a central feature of community life in Ecuador (Pallares 2005), and our participants speak of attempts to maintain this tradition in Val Rendena. Parties and leisure time safeguard the cohesion of a transnational community that may otherwise fragment (Boccagni 2010). They are occasions to perform what Boccagni calls "emotional patriotism," which is "concerned less with the motherland, than with the ways of reproducing, and turning into real social practices, the reminiscences that Ecuador elicits overseas" (2011b:92).…”