Abstract

GAMEZ PEREZ, Irenia; OSORIO VILLAVICENCIO, Nina Andrea  and  GARCIA ROMERO, Julián Esteban. The streets of hunger in Ecuador: a study of recent Venezuelan migration. Rev. colomb. soc. [online]. 2020, vol.43, n.1, pp.37-58.  Epub Apr 03, 2020. ISSN 0120-159X.  https://doi.org/10.15446/rcs.v43n1.79131.

The article presents the results of a qualitative research project on the processes of insertion into the labor market of the Venezuelan migrant population in Quito, Ecuador, in 2018. The starting point to describe and understand that phenomenon is its multidimensionality and the interweaving of a deregulated, precarized labor market, migration policies in Ecuador, transnational migration networks, and gender cleavage. The question guiding this inquiry is: how does the insertion of the Venezuelan migrant population into the labor market occur in Quito? Our analysis is based on previous analyses that assume the job insertion of the migrant population as a complex social process in which market and institutional mechanisms, migration networks (social relations based on kinship, friendship, class, or paisanazgo, or coming from the same community or region), and gender cleavage operate at the same time (Castles and Miller, 1993; Castles, Arias, Kim and Ozkul, 2012; Castles, 2013). This theoretical framework is supported by empirical evidence gathered in the field. As a result of this symbiosis between theory and field data, some of the findings show that: Venezuelan migrants build support networks based on kinship, friendship, class, or paisanazgo, which allow for their insertion into the job market; transitioning among more or less informal and precarious jobs depends on the person's social and economic capital; the efficacy of job insertion strategies depends on gender, age, class, and ethnic group; and, finally, migrants learn through socialization and interaction with others in the same or a similar social condition how to cope with the difficulties of the informal job market by creating repertoires of action. The methodological strategy employed was the qualitative case study, whose basic characteristic is addressing a unit intensively through a broad and profound description of the case itself. The techniques used to gather information were semi-structured interviews and participant observation.

Descriptors: Ecuador, employment, migration, poverty, social inequality.

Keywords : deregulation; gender; job market; migration; neoliberalism; migration networks.

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