Bolivian immigration to São Paulo and kinship relations: a look from the origins

• Grant number: 12/09282-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: August 20, 2012
• End date: March 19, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology
• Principal Investigator: Rosana Aparecida Baeninger
• Grantee: Patricia Tavares de Freitas
• Supervisor: Maria Esther Pozo Vallejo
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Universidad Mayor de San Simón (UMSS), Bolivia
• Associated to the scholarship: 09/18504-0 - Migration, work and family: the Bolivian workers of São Paulo garment industry, BP.DR

Abstract

This project will be developed within the PhD research about the Bolivian immigration linked to the garment industry in Brazil. The main project proposes an alternative approach to the debate about "ethnic enclave" formation: instead of focusing on the host society determinants, shifts the look to the migration dynamics developed from the socioeconomic mobility strategies of households formed out of their contexts of origin - in view of the fact that the main entry into the garment industry of the city of São Paulo is established from the places of origin of the Bolivian immigration. Accordingly, the proposed stage in Bolivia aims at constructing parameters for addressing these migratory dynamics of the places of origin based on the investigation of the "networks of sending" of Bolivian immigrants to the garment industry of the city of São Paulo established amidst three contexts of origin: I) ex-miners from Oruro at Cochabamba; ii) ex-farm workers who migrated to El Alto and, iii) a rural community from the department of La Paz. From this research it is intended to consider, on the one hand, the diversity of family and labor arrangements of Bolivian immigrants at the garment industry of the city of São Paulo in relation with the specific contexts of origin listed above. And, on the other hand, in line with the contemporary debates on the concepts of "transnationalism" and "reversibility", highlight the need to consider, when debating the inclusion of international migration flows in the host societies, the role of the arrangements of the origin societies. (AU)