Mercosur and migration: impacts and changes caused by the process of regional integration from the decade of 1990

• Grant number: 11/24116-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: March 01, 2012
• End date: December 31, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - International Politics
• Principal Investigator: Marcelo Passini Mariano
• Grantee: Rogerio Ferreira Ziroldo
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais (FCHS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Franca. Franca , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research project aims to analyze the process of regional integration in Mercosur and its influences on the migration policies of countries that comprise it. These countries undergo a process in which two different views on migration fight for preeminence in the formulation and establishment of their migration policies. This clash of perceptions on the migration phenomenon is valid not only in Mercosur, but in the global debate on the subject, and it is that defines the direction and how migration policies will be built and applied. In the literature consulted during the preparation of this project were found indications of the mutual influence between the processes of regional integration and migration. However, such statements were vague and did not demonstrate how this influence occurs and neither the breadth and depth that it reaches. This work aims to bring some contribution to the question by looking through the analysis of the discourses and policies before and after the creation of Mercosur, to what extent the perception of governments on the issue of migration is changing, and how that change translates into a weakening of the restrictive traditional management, and a overhaul of the immigration policies. To achieve this goal, and having in mind the clash of views about migration, we intend to analyze what were the changes in immigration policies of the Mercosur countries that could be observed from the 1990s, when the Mercosur were created.