Migración infantil: rupturas generacionales y de género. Las niñas peruanas en Barcelona y Santiago de Chile

Abstract

The aim of the Doctoral Thesis is to study the transformations of gender, generational and expectations, as well as the differences and similarities in the immigrant experience for Peruvian children, and particularly for girls, who participate in migration processes with their families to Santiago de Chile and Barcelona (Spain). The theoretical framework includes the Gender perspective, the Sociology of Childhood and Family Social Class. Methodologically, it includes secondary sources and a qualitative methodology with semi-structured interviews and participant observation._x000D_ Usually, when families are involved in mobility processes they want to improve their current living conditions, but they also feel that migration is a way for their children to have access to opportunities for study and work. In this way, they become the real protagonists of family migration project because they have to demonstrate its success or failure. Though its centrality in the family migration, it is usually unknown how children participate in it. In addition, like adults, children live self-contradictions, changes and losses that inevitably affect their lives. Even if adults have been the pioneers of family migration, particularly the mothers in the case of Peruvian migration to Spain and Chile, our intention is to take critical distance from an "adult-centered" perspective and focus on the experiences of girls and boys in transnational migration, which involves multiple territories, societies and cultures. This Doctoral Thesis is a sociologically approach to child migration experience, not only seen as a process from the host society and from the adult perspective, but analyzing girls and boys as global actors with capacity of "agency", that is why we talk about "child migration"._x000D_ The values and social practices of the new place of residence in respect of generational and gender relations put in question and, in some ways, they transform the rules of migrant families. This research analyzes the differences and inequalities lived by children, and particularly girls, in the exercise of their rights and liberties, school experiences and future expectations and proposes an explanatory hypothesis about such differences from a gender socialization and strict childhood roles._x000D_ The research provides a methodological tool supported by an innovative theoretical and epistemological perspective to analyze the complexity of the migrant children phenomenon, and offers a " model of analysis " that allows the articulation of four central themes and cross-cutting considerations: a) migration and nationality; b) family social class; c) age and generation; d) gender. In the theme of migration and nationality, we discus about the concept of "child migrant experience" in dialogue with other categories. In the issue of social class we reflect about educational expectations, also considering across gender, generation and immigrant status. In the age and generation theme we explore the "child participation" and the exercise of generational power of girls and boys in the migration process, also considering other aspects. Finally, in the gender thematic we review the "transnational affiliation" and the changes and continuities of gender. Each theme delves into the multiple dimensions of child migration process, seeing it as something spiral, multiple and complex (synchronous), in constant interaction with the territory (Peru, Barcelona, Santiago).

Date of Award	14 Apr 2011
Original language	Undefined/Unknown
Supervisor	Sonia Parella Rubio (Director)